P-Prompt: Quasi licence

When we invited Mexican writer and feminist new media and technology scholar Gabriela Méndez Cota to join the reading group Limits to Openness we were very much interested in the project "Reuse, rewrite, disappropriate" that she initiated and her reuse of Mexican writer Cristina Rivera Garza's work on disappropriation. In the conversations that followed, Gabriela stressed that we don't need more licences but to articulate the power dynamics that escape any licence. She suggested working with quasi licences, that include a concept of good will or good faith, including the articulation of prescriptions that could be relevant in the moment of negotiating the meaning of the licence in particular settings.

We don't need more licences. We need to understand, and maybe articulate in a more explicit way, as feminism has been doing for decades, the power dynamics that escape any licence. It would be interesting to produce something like a quasi licence, that includes a concept of good will or good faith. Such quasi licence would include prescriptions that could be relevant at the moment of negotiating the meaning of the licence in particular settings.

Gabriela Méndez Cota: “Have you worked with the idea of “buena fe”? It translates literally from Spanish to “good will” or “good faith”. It's a juridical term here [in Mexico] “to act in good will”, and it does have some weight. If you can prove that somebody did not act in good faith or goodwill then there are consequences. And that's where a sense of ethical responsibility comes in — in our relation to others. I don't know if that's playing a role in your project with licences, but it is something that could work within a non-normative framework or outside a framework of content-based obligations Because in my opinion, as a practitioner who has worked in this particular experiment with the radical open access community, I’d say, we don't need more licences. We need to understand, and maybe articulate in a more explicit way, as feminism has been doing for decades, the power dynamics that escape any licence.

It's the problem of the law in general, since the law is not the same as justice, and we have to keep interrogating the law from its margins, from its limits. The issue with licences is, when you think you have achieved a licence that will prevent violence or all violence, well, then you will have reached a point at which you render the law and justice equivalent. And for me, that's injustice, that's unethical. That's my concern with juridical thinking in general. It would be interesting to produce something like a quasi licence, that includes a concept of good will or good faith. Such quasi licence would include prescriptions that could be relevant at the moment of negotiating the meaning of the licence in particular settings.