fyi ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Jaap van Till <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Aug 7, 2020 at 7:15 PM Subject: Article To: Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> Beste Michel, Kan jij zo vriendelijk zijn om dit artikel op een van de P2P sites te (laten) publiceren? Het is een m.i. terechte poging om de steeds maar groter wordende dominantie van Amazon af te remmen. Ze gaan zich ook al met de inhoud van boeken bemoeien, en de werkomstandigheden in de verzendcentra zijn vergelijkbaar met slavernij. Winkels en kleine uitgevers worden vermorzeld. Groet van/ Yours Sincerely, ir J.W. Jaap van Till visiting professor and network architect Wordpress blog: TheConnectivist Mobile: +31 655303210 My mission is: to help P2P Empower the Creative Class Begin doorgestuurd bericht: *Van:* Katarzyna Gajewska <[email protected]> *Datum:* 7 augustus 2020 om 09:24:30 CEST *Aan:* Jaap van Till <[email protected]> *Onderwerp:* *Original article*  Picture: Wheatpaste found in Columbia Heights, Washington, DC, May 2020, Photo by Darell Duane ShareAlike CC BY-SA <https://creativecommonsusa.org/index.php/ufaqs/what-are-the-different-types-of-cc-licenses/> *How NOT to work for Amazon? - author's dilemma* *by Katarzyna Gajewska* What to do when a book project keeps haunting you as if it decided to get finished without consulting you on that matter? When thinking about my project, I was considering what feels fully within my integrity. I want this book to be accessible for free and in decentralized way in order to fit to the concept of peer production, which I explore. I want to prepare a document that people can print out similarly as *Low-Tech Magazine proposes it <https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2019/03/printed-website.html>* or read online wherever they are. It is about localized, environmentally friendly consumption. I want them to be able to buy paper copies as well and support small activist publishers. I want to support financially people contributing to production process and working towards a visionary change. I want this book to be accessible to people in countries where buying books from the West may not be easily affordable. There is one thing that I do not want: making profits for Amazon. As an author, one is caught up in a conundrum as contributing to the concentration of wealth seems to be the only option if one wants to reach out globally. I want to test another option. Activists have recently gathered to come with solutions against Amazon and formed *Athena coalition <https://athenaforall.org/#s3>* with *Dania Rajendra <https://daniarajendra.net/dani/>* as the director. They want to tackle the problems of digital surveillance, working conditions in warehouses, and using taxpayers' money in favor of Amazon's business. One wonders why it has not happened long time ago. Those who already see through the perils of the wealth accumulation have the power to take a moral stance in their actions. Hannah Arendt wanted to understand deeply the deeds of Nazi regime. She pointed to the refusal to think and question that led to evil. Western consumer societies live in an illusion that there are no big decisions to make or moral dilemmas to resolve. In contrast, I believe that time needed for confronting moral dilemmas would be so overwhelming that we could not survive in this system. I intuit that human inner operating system has adapted a functional inhibition of moral consideration. This serves the system. It is more difficult to see the water you are in and spell out our dilemmas. We are acting on auto-pilot. Fed with the same memes all over, it is difficult to envision options. If everybody does and aspires the same, there are no choices to make. Making choices invisible by permeating every aspect of life – which the concentration of wealth allows – is so much easier than applying censorship. A typical author would not ask whether they want to work for Amazon. The entire machinery of normalizing the status quo prevents such a question to emerge. If I signed a contract with a publisher, campaigning against buying my book on Amazon would probably break it. Moral dilemma is whether to limit access and information about my work by forgoing the usual procedure or consider that extending the readership of my book serves higher good, which will outweigh the damages. I want a third more creative option. We are stuck in helplessness because we either do not think of different options or justify our choices by saying that there is no choice. When giants are the nearest option, any extra way to buy elsewhere is an act of resistance. Writers, artists, people who think and feel too much have a social role to play. Isn't it in our job description to call for integrity and moral standards? We need to defend the freedom of thought before it is too late. COVID-19 enabled the giant to wipe out smaller providers and take an even bigger share of the market. Such a monopoly can strengthen the opportunity to censor writing. Publishers may anticipate that certain publications may not be approved by Amazon's machinery and forgo publication. Franklin Foer reports an incident of pressurizing a publisher after his 2014 article “Amazon Must Be Stopped” in *The New Republic <https://newrepublic.com/article/119769/amazons-monopoly-must-be-broken-radical-plan-tech-giant>*. He *wrote <https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/11/what-jeff-bezos-wants/598363/>*, “Citing my article, the company subsequently terminated an advertising campaign for its political comedy, Alpha House, that had been running in the magazine.” Failed-to-be-secret *writers' retreats <https://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazons-jeff-bezos-hosts-campfire-super-secret-literary-retreat-santa-fe/>* organized by Jeff Bezos may be another way of manufacturing consent. Allegedly, Ghislaine Maxwell *has participated <https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a35895/ghislaine-maxwell-was-a-guest-at-jeff-bezoss-secret-book-retreat>* in three of them. This adds to the question of the intentions behind such meetings. The instance of *removing digital <https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html>* version of Orwell's “1984” from users' Kindle in 2009 because the provider turned out not to have the rights to offer this e-book showed that people do not really own these books once purchased. Furthermore, they may leave notes about their readings, which apparently are also in the hands of the company. This opens a lot of possibility to manipulate the content at their disposal. The case of *counterfeited copies <https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/technology/amazon-domination-bookstore-books.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article&fbclid=IwAR2aO7YOSEmgfxSU85nmkKpWDctncpO8A4M8bH7cyxhIQlJph413_KVm43A>* sold on Amazon further unravels the opportunities for manipulation of the content. The only option meeting my ethical criteria seems to be crowdfunding. I am collecting money to pay to a copyeditor and other co-creators. By giving access to printable manuscript, I want people to be able to do a print-on-demand in their locality. I also hope to collect money for LibriVox recording. Giving out of generosity and appreciation instead of buying creates a different relation between myself and readers. P2P movement works on the problem of potential extraction of creative commons achievements by corporations. Stacco Troncoso from *Guerrilla Translation <https://hackernoon.com/last-night-a-distributed-cooperative-organization-saved-my-life-a-brief-introduction-to-discos-4u5cv2zmn>* gives an example of a book they translated into Spanish under Peer Production License (PPL), which *he describes <https://blog.p2pfoundation.net/think-global-print-local-licensing-commons/2016/05/10>* as “a copyFARleft license which allows cooperatives and solidarity-based collectives, but not corporations, to monetize cultural works. This license opens the possibility to print, publish, and distribute the translated book for cooperative publishers worldwide.” A longer analysis of this experience can be found *here <http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-10-peer-production-and-work/varia/think-global-print-local-a-case-study-on-a-commons-based-publishing-and-distribution-model/>*. The aim of *this license <http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Reflections_on_the_Contradictions_of_the_Commons#Generative_P2P_production:_From_capitalism_to_the_Commons>* is to create a network of Commons initiatives and stream income into this type of organizations. Another license, *Commons Clause <https://commonsclause.com/>*, enforces a negotiation to prevent “predatory commercial advantage” and enable developers to benefit from commercial use of their work. Further elaborations on the nuances of Non-Commercial and Peer Production licenses can be found *here <http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Bibliography_of_the_Triple_C_Debate_between_P2P_Theory_and_Marxist_Critics>*. The problems of extraction are real and can be expected to be one of the front lines of P2P movement in the future. First *law cases <https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Case_Law>*have been in courts. For my needs, this Peer Production License is too limiting. The character of my book will deter big commercially oriented companies anyway. Many small publishers, and these ones are more likely to be interested in marginal topics of my book, are not cooperatives. Furthermore, cooperative movement does not have the same conditions in all countries. Production process is not where unjust profit extraction mainly happens. As far as I know it is impossible to include a clause forbidding selling a specific product on a specific platform. *Vasilis Kostakis <http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Vasilis_Kostakis>*, a digital commons scholar, confirmed that a license that would explicitly forbid selling a certain product on Amazon “might be against the 'free trade' legal framework.” Legal scholar whom I asked in an e-mail, Professor Aggelos Kornilakis, sees a possibility for a producer to forbid the use of their work on moral grounds. However, he points out that the courts would formulate judgments about excluding Amazon from the possibility of selling a specific product. It is impossible to predict what the judgment would be like. While I lack wherewithal to deal with this legal conundrum, I want this question to inspire reflection in Commons movement. Questions that are rarely asked (because of the hegemony of dominant actors) are those that may inspire the most radical change. At least, in our thinking. Non-contractual exploitation of my work by Amazon is definitely against my moral standards. I do not want to add money to inhumane working conditions in its logistics centers. I do not want my book to be delivered by exhausted employees and perpetuate the stories of *Vickie Shannon Allen <https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/30/accidents-at-amazon-workers-left-to-suffer-after-warehouse-injuries>*, *José Antonio Rueda Bermudez <https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/06/02/spai-j02.html>*, and many other workers who cannot *drink water <https://serwisy.gazetaprawna.pl/praca-i-kariera/artykuly/1209250,kontrola-pip-w-polskim-amazonie-nieludzkie-traktowanie.html>* and *pee <https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-like-prison-where-workers-used-pee-bottle-2018-4?r=DE&IR=T>* when they need it. Corona pandemic added more cruelty to *Jeff Bezos' portfolio <http://www.defenddemocracy.press/jeff-bezos-is-the-planets-richest-man-and-covid-19-is-making-him-ever-wealthier-but-hes-also-the-worlds-most-selfish-man/?fbclid=IwAR372UFbCcYeNzYTzOo_QK-351ztXSBx1eTkp3b9LZTWaen_qQGk4aOlNW8>*. His employees were not equipped to protect themselves and the company did not obey the rules about nonessential products' retail in France. Amazon was going to win a lot due to the quarantine but it seems like it is never enough. Furthermore, Jeff Bezos did not decide to share his fast growing wealth to help in the crisis. If you find my books on Amazon, please, do not buy them there! If you know of a publisher actively resisting selling their books on Amazon, let me know. These people should be promoted! We need to talk. Let us make it a new brand and new habit to explicitly choose those who do not submit to what has become the source of oppression. It feels lighter to stick to my own paradigm rather than try to convince myself of other people's aspirations. The project became life and an experimentation with a new approach and my inner walls. I had to reinvent everything after having given up on academic career. I write this article partly to help you to stick to your dream as other people helped me to stick to mine. There is no happy ending to this story (yet?). So far mere setting up of the *campaign <https://www.gofundme.com/f/imagine-a-sane-society-book-project>* has been a bumpy ride. Now the end of the story is also in your clicking hands. The author appreciates Vasilis Kostakis' contribution to this article through an e-mail interview. He provided an overview and the links to the literature on commons-based licenses. Is the world ready for a feminine non-fiction utopia? Vote by *donating* <https://www.gofundme.com/f/imagine-a-sane-society-book-project>! Help to push Katarzyna's work to the masses. You can listen to an *excerpt from the book “Imagine a Sane Society”* <http://www.katarzynagajewska.org/imagine-a-sane-society-book-release> . The entire book will be available for free (digital text + audio) once we collect enough money for production. For updates on *her* publications: Katarzyna Gajewska - Independent Scholar <https://www.facebook.com/Katarzyna-Gajewska-Independent-Scholar-1424563094446010/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel> Her publication list (selection): https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Katarzyna_Gajewska Recently published: *Robot as a Teacher: The Perils of Digitalized Progress in Education* <https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/07/robot-as-a-teacher/> *Of Viruses and the Limits of Masculine (Dys)topias* <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-23/of-viruses-and-the-limits-of-masculine-dystopias/> *The Cultural Preparation for Crisis* <https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-07-16/the-cultural-preparation-for-crisis/> *Naming the Alternatives* <https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/naming-the-alternatives-lbkr/> *So you want to leave it all and create a community?* <https://communelifeblog.wordpress.com/2020/07/01/so-you-want-to-leave-it-all-and-create-a-community/> -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/