I'm going to see if I can dump the contents of my brain before I sleep, though the lucidity may well suffer :) I got back from the iCommons summit today, which was a gathering of around 300 free culture advocates, activists, hackers and organisers held in Rio de Janeiro. To sum it all up? Crazy, inspiring, exhausting.

Photo on the roof of the Marriot Hotel, by Fred Beneson.

The flight out knocked me out straight away, and an Italian couple next to me with a dog (!) didn't help. I had fun pretending to be French with the flight crew until they tried to explain that there was a problem with my luggage, which pretty much demonstrated my terrible tourist grasp of the language. So the first day was a tired blur, chatting with people like Jon Phillips of Creative Commons/Inkscape and Björn Wijers of the fantastic Simuze about collaborating more on software for artists and CC projects. I went to the birds of a feather session on localising free culture events, which was a nice opportunity to get an overview of FreeCulture.org's activities and to let people know more about Free Culture UK. It was a shame the presentation took up so much of the slot though, I would have loved a full session discussing strategies and maybe even working on some joint documentation. Hopefully it will lead somewhere useful with online collaboration...

In the evening we went to an apparently typical Brazilian restaurant, which was based on the principle that a big belly soaks up beer best. You basically just sat there while waiters loaded your plate with ever-greater quantities of barbecued meat, and if you let your concentration lapse your near-empty glass got replaced before you could decline or ask for guarana instead. Getting used to staying in a plush hotel on the Copacabana beach was hard enough without them loading this poor student's gut with a waitered open bar and an all you can eat mentality!

The next morning I went shopping since my luggage hadn't arrived yet. I had only bothered to learn some basic taxi/restaurant phrases, so asking for pants and socks was a bit convoluted and embarrassing (i.e. pointing at my crotch). Eventually I found a shop that had stuff on display so I put on my idiot-tourist hat and obstinately pointed my way into getting the underwear and a snazzy tourist t-shirt :(

Being in the refrigerated basement of the Marriot hotel for most of the trip drove me mad. Photo by John Wilbanks.

Saturday kicked off with a really interesting panel, especially with James Boyle and Niva Elkin-Koren coming to blows over CC strategy. Niva stressed that CC reinforces the norms of copyright, including ownership and the notion that intellectual products are commodities rather than communicative acts. Her presentation basically echoed concerns outlined in her recent paper. Licenses aren't a form of self-expression; she was critical of the "authors choice" agenda. She also suggested that choice in disclosure (i.e. when your work is published under a free license, allowing exclusive use periods) would be a powerful choice model that doesn't harm the user of freely licensed work. David Berry's recent critique of CC is well worth reading in this light. In response James Boyle defended the worth of the no-derivatives and non-commercial clauses in particular contexts (Berry should seek his arguments out since they fit his suspicion of the common-by-default agenda). It was great to have a debate almost breaking out about such fundamental issues, though a combination of time constraints and a high-five "we rock!" pragmatism quashed it soon after it began.

I do wonder how far social conventions can act as sufficient constraints. They could do away with the CC approach of using ownership jujitsu style to create a pseudo-common. For example, Boyle suggested that scientific journals need to use the no-derivatives clause to protect their reputation and guarantee that what you read is an original, reputable article. I might email him to ask why this is the case, because it seems to me that you can't ever trust a PDF you get emailed. What does the ND clause add except a stronger legal recourse in the case of fraud? Is the academic tradition against plagiarism not a good model to expand elsewhere? Speaking more broadly, what principles or objectives am I working with when thinking that legal regimes are costly whilst social conventions are a more genuine expression? Join myself and Tony Curzon Price in continuing the debate if you fancy it.

In the afternoon I took part in the enterprise commons workshop. As a green localist I love the idea of building a network of people and tools to support small and medium sized free culture businesses. Remix Reading is going that way by becoming a social enterprise called RAVES, which will partly be an agency connecting local artists with organisations who want workshops or contract work. The great thing is that we can integrate community and commerce, making the project sustainable without damaging our principles nor project dynamic. We hope to make money by giving people more creative opportunities, rather than restricting them or locking them into notions of private ownership. I'd recommend that anyone with an interest in keeping free culture financially sustainable without needing handouts from major corporates takes a good look at the Open Business network.

Those braver than me danced the night away to the Salsa on Saturday. Photo by Mike Linksvayer.

The second evening didn't go so well for me. A combination of caipirinhas, far too many cheesy balls (we didn't really eat a proper meal) and previous beer preparation at a cheap little local bar made me pretty ill, which made the next day fun, especially when combined with lack of sleep. I had to get up and speak on a panel, yay! Ah well, a self-deprecating opening joke always gets the audience on side... It was still fun to hang out with the likes of Gavin Baker, Becky Hogge, Tony Curzon Price and anyone else who would tolerate my conversation - the great thing about meetings like the iSummit is how cool everyone there is. It's really humbling hearing the amazing work others are doing, especially throughout Latin America which seems so far ahead of the rest of the world on free culture issues!

So then, my panel went well with interesting presentations on the public sector in the UK and Australia. Joshua Fouts (who, contrary to the photo on that page, now sports a beard) spoke about a really interesting interface of public diplomacy, the promotion of peaceful resolutions, online computer gaming and liberal copyright licensing. A lot of the panels had this balance; bringing slightly leftfield topics into the mix really showed the value and broad relevance of the summit beyond copyfighting.

I snuck off after lunch to watch the England match with some compatriots. Who'd've thunk you'd end up watching England reach the quarter finals with a lady from the Shuttleworth Foundation as company? :)

The last panel of the conference brought some much-needed controversy ;) I'm going to write about this in more detail in the future, but suffice to say that the undemocratic nature of iCommons was laid bare by a series of kangaroo decisions. Expediency trumped proper procedure well enough, and whilst some delegates may feel comfortable ceding power to demagogues this nut prefers a self-proclaimed grassroots movement to be made legitimate by membership votes and the like. I also raised the notion that iCommons might ensure that its merchandise meets basic ethical requirements like the International Labour Organisation's convention on labour standards to avoid the worst excesses of exploitation. Are we a movement looking to a better world, or a conceited club interested solely in copyfighting? The reception from the board was frosty, but I got lots of encouragement later in the day and evening, especially from Latin Americans!

So we headed off for a meal before the BNegão concert (free mp3s). Brazilians really love their meat, even the chips (fries for the yanks) were mixed in with thin slices of ham! Properly filled I spent the evening sipping water, making a fool of myself on the dance floor and thoroughly enjoying the unique sound of Brazilian Hip Hop (hint: add a trumpet!) The next morning Gavin, Tony, Cory Doctorow and I took a stroll up and down the wintry sunny Copacabana before heading home... to an overcast summer London :) Now four days to finish off a dissertation draft then I'm off to the P&P summer gathering.