Culture vs. Copyright/Acknowledgments

by Anatoly Volynets

Acknowledgments

Sponsors of this Book

Total Knowledge (www.total-knowledge.com), the company I run with my son Ilya and daughter Sasha, has provided financial support for the author and publication of the book.

Direct Interlocutors

These are the intelligent people whose active participation in discussion, extensive knowledge, powerful emotional charge, plain help, and advice caused the book to emerge. I cannot tell who helped me more to assemble my message: co-thinkers or opponents, those I argued with directly or those whose posts I just read, finding them interesting, helpful, or thought provoking.

I want to express my exceptional thanks to the following people:

Tom Poe, founder of Open Studios, who was the major disciplinary force for me. Tom encouraged me to compile the Authoright license, one of the central points of this book. Tom helped me to overcome my own laziness and to put in writing most of the chapters. They appeared for the first time in my column called Culture vs. Copyright, in the Open Studios Newsletter, published by Tom.

The late Cookie Holley, founder of bNg Records (the site is not working any more, but the mailing list bumpNgrind@yahoogroups.com still does) and an enthusiastic, artistic, absolutely unique personality of a unique fate. Cookie was able to invoke the highest sense of personal responsibility while being wise and gentle. She was another driving force in my quest. It is truly tragic that she is no longer with us.

Ilya Volynets, my dear son and the most intensive interlocutor in discussions of the ideas developed in this book. It was he who quickly and clearly grasped the essence of many issues. Ilya was actually that brave man who consistently denied copyright-related prejudices and helped me to tear piece by piece their flesh off my bones until I felt utterly free to think about the subject and apply my extensive knowledge of cultural studies to issues relevant to “Intellectual Property.”

Sasha Volynets, my lovely daughter, the very first and brilliant literary editor of this book. She contributed greatly in refining and fine-tuning my work in terms of content, wording, and style.

Miriam Rainsford (iriXx), my very first and so far the very best reader, a dream reader for any writer. I did not have to convince her personally that these ideas are practical—my text was convincing enough for her. Miriam also provided some significant advice for this work.

Robert F. Bodi, a fierce opponent of mine and defender of the status quo. No co-thinker helped me as much as he did. Robert’s diverse argumentation clarified my understanding of the minute details of the real impact exclusive rights have on society.

Many subscribers from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) discussion mailing list (“http://marc.info/?l=dmcadiscuss—” it is an archive—the list is no longer active) and the above-mentioned bumpNgrind mailing list. This book would never have come to existence without them: Seth Johnson, Jon O., Roy Garris, Jean-Michel Smith, James S. Huggins, Matthew T. Russotto, DeBug, Kevin Marks, Michael Weishaar, Jim Bauer, Pieter Hulshoff, Andrey V. Khavryuchenko, David Haworth, Miguel Dias, Jay Sulzberger, Dr. John Raymond Baker, Dan-redball, Steven C. Barr, Chuck McKay, and many others. Many thanks to you all.

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Cultural Interlocutors

While I have been inspired by the ideas of prominent philosophers, psychologists, philologists, artists, and poets—Vladimir Bibler, Mikhail Bakhtin, Lev Vygotsky, Josef Brodsky, Osip Mandelshtam, Diego Rivera, Thomas Jefferson, etc.—I have rarely quoted any of them directly. This is intentional—I just wrote as I understood the subject matter of the book, and thus I take all responsibility for it. I also want this book to be readable and understandable not for philosophers only, but for everyone. I think that it is necessary because it is nearly impossible to find a person unaffected by copyright or patent-related turmoil nowadays. However, if some bits of the book seem too philosophical, you can skip them at the first reading and come back later.

I am compelled to pay particular tribute to the first thinker on my list, Vladimir Bibler, a Russian philosopher of Jewish descent who felt that ancient Greece was his cultural motherland. I was lucky to communicate with him for years. Vladimir Bibler developed a vision of the culture of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, “The Dialogue of Cultures.” The Dialogue of Cultures is interrelated to “Dialogics,” the logic of thinking and communication, and “Paradox-logic,” the logic of the transmutation of ideas. A special application of this triad to education gave birth to the concept of the “School of The Dialogue of Cultures.” Vladimir Bibler passed away in 2002. He left books and articles, written and published in Russian, which are not that easy to understand but are impossible not to accept. I believe Vladimir Bibler is one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and of humankind. His ideas were what mostly guided my quest.

Two More Notes

While this book has been prepared for publication I have learned that several ideas contemplated, more than probably, echoed some perspectives from a 1994 essay in Wired by John Perry Barlow called “The Economy of Ideas.”

I also recalled that idea that a part can be greater than its whole was expressed by a friend of mine Gregory Sapirsteyin when we both were very young.