Peer Production License

This text applies to the publication "A bed, a chair and a table" and explains why it cannot be sold by any privately owned business.

Description

The Peer Production License (PPL) is derived from the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license, but has a small but very important anti-capitalist twist. As described in the content of the license, it only allows commercial exploitation by collectives in which the ownership of the means of production is in the hands of the value creators, and where any surplus is distributed equally among them. This means that a company in which the profit is not distributed equally among workers is not allowed to sell a work under this license.

PPL is a license that "both creates a commons, but also favours the creation of an ethical economy of commons-oriented and commons-friendly market and other entities. The Peer Production License does this by opening up the commercial aspect of the ubiquitous Creative Commons ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike’ and shutting down the possibility of profiteering by corporate agents" (P2P Foundation). Effectively, this means that PPL encourages the distribution of work under non-commercial terms, while also opening up the possibility for ethical collectives to have the same rights as the authors, as long as they share the compensation equally.

Extracted from the PPL license:

c. You may exercise the rights granted in Section 3 for commercial purposes only if:

i. You are a worker-owned business or worker-owned collective; and

ii. all financial gain, surplus, profits and benefits produced by the business or collective are distributed among the worker-owners

Why it makes sense?

• The nature of the Poortgebouw as a collective in which sharing resources is a major principle is legally reinforced through the license of this publication built upon the commons of the Poortgebouw.
• The fact that we are openly sharing the process behind building our publication reinforces the idea of sharing resources.
• The non-commercial aspect of a publication produced by a group of students for academic purposes, in which any monetary compensation would go to our common use makes it natural that no for-profit uses would be allowed.
• To encourage the sharing of the types of principles that Poortgebouw is promoting, and allow collectives like them to benefit from them.
• To encourage dialogue regarding the distribution of cultural work.