Copyright is for losers. British graffiti artist Banksy opens his recent book featuring an overview of his illegally applied artworks with this slogan. And how right he is. If you place an unsolicited artistic work in the public domain, you shouldn’t complain if people copy, change or remove it. Architecture has a lot in common with graffiti in that sense. It, too, is placed without invitation (at least, by anyone other than the client/occupant) in the public domain, there’s no avoiding it, and it ‘suffers’ from change, and is subject to copying without the prior permission of the original maker. The only difference is that architecture is an intervention in the public domain sanctioned by the authorities, and that architects – unlike graffiti artists and other 21st-century creatives from hip-hop culture, information technology and new media – think it’s important to protect their intellectual property. Nonetheless, they scarcely know what that protection actually means (so first read the ‘Short course in copyright for architects’ )and therefore don’t know why it should be so important to hold onto it. So it’s time they quit and joined the 'cut and paste' culture of the 21st century. It’s time to sanction and regulate the current practice of sharing (or lifting and destroying if you prefer) through a new practice of Open Source and Creative Commons.
 
First, the frenetic attitude among architects concerning copyright is hopelessly nineteenth-century, since it still respects the principle of art as ‘the most individual expression of a most individual emotion’ (or at least a most original idea). That attitude has become untenable owing to the lightning dissemination of cultural expression and is scarcely taken seriously any more in our current media-saturated and globalised society. What’s more, copyright is in any case a nineteenth-century discovery, a sequel to and consequence of patent legislation enacted to protect the position of the industrialist/capitalist within the capitalist system that had just emerged. In the end, of course, copyright law protects the designer/capitalist against the use of his work by the masses. And that’s all the more serious in the case of architecture given that those very masses are the ones who occupy the work, the ones for whom it’s all intended (at least if you’re to believe the promo blurb of the average architect).
Furthermore, belief in the protective effect is rather futile. Rarely is a court case brought by an architect about a copyright infringement settled in his favour. It’s a legal grey area and it’s difficult to make sense of the conflicting verdicts. The practise of law is problematic in most of the arts, and even more so in architecture where professional practice is so strongly based on and connected to tradition and building on knowledge and experience amassed previously by others. Each architectural design is, to a certain extent, a ‘derivative’ (pastiche, homage, paraphrase, but all without acknowledgement) of another design. Every architect pinches (on the street, from magazines, in lectures and congresses) and no architect is capable of conceiving a completely original work. On the other hand, every architectural design, even if it is ‘stolen’, is still unique because of the changed context (located in another place and subject to other conditions than the ‘original’ work), and for that reason alone there’s little to protect.
When it comes to architecture, an appeal to the ‘moral right’, protection against destruction, etc, is itself amoral. Architecture, after all, is about producing objects for use. If usage requires an extra dormer window, solar shading, a chicken coop or an extra floor, it is contrary to this function of usefulness if the architect thwarts it by appealing to copyright. Unlike almost all other arts, architecture is a public art par excellence. Its expressions are displayed pontifically and irretrievably in the public domain and there’s no avoiding them. In the case of such public expression, an appeal to a personal right is, to put it mildly, egocentric.

So there’s every reason to stop all this. Sharing knowledge and experience so that others can work quickly and effectively and unobstructed to create better versions is the very essence of innovation. Copyright is totally incapable of accommodating that; it is a law of protection, not of sharing. Clinging to copyright means obstructing innovation and improvement.
Luckily there’s a way out of this situation. In the new creative cultures, particularly in the area of information technology and Internet, clever solutions have been devised that regulate the sharing of original, creative work (texts, images, music, software) and are therefore capable of innovating rapidly. The two most important principles are: open source and creative commons.
Open Source is the release for use and further development of the source of a product. That implies the relinquishing (within limits established by the collective) of intellectual and industrial property. This mainly concerns software. Well-known examples are the Unix derivative Linux, the webserver Apache, Wikipedia and other wikis, open browsers like Firefox, Open Office, the alternative to MS Office, etc. In the field of hardware there is OpenSparc, an open source processor. But the principle can also be applied in other areas. For example, there is an open source recipe for cola; the Tropical Disease Initiative is working to find a way around the monopoly position and pricing policy of the pharmaceutical industry with open pharmaceutical recipes; and a big group of designers is working on the OSCar Project, a collective car design through Internet. And there are lots more examples. In the Netherlands Dennis Kaspori has been striving for a long time to promote such an open source culture in architecture – with little support to date unfortunately. However, the principle of open source is eminently suited to making a collective design in which architects and occupants work together on the built environment.
Creative Commons is a refined and tailored licensing agreement for copyright and right of use that is also based on sharing, but in which intellectual property isn’t relinquished. Or rather: not all rights reserved but some rights reserved. In that sense the principle of Creative Commons is better tailored to solving the architectural problem outlined in this article. With a Creative Commons license, copyright is retained but the work is made available for certain forms of use. Which forms of use are permitted can be determined for each license, but there are a number of standard principles (see the inset in this article: Creative Commons). For each principle (fully available, use only but do not change, no commercial use, etc) a standard contract can be downloaded and appended to the work made available. The principle is commonly used today by authors, composers, photographers (many Flickr photographs are made available under a form of CC) and software producers. No well-detailed standard contracts have yet been drawn up for designers and architects. This to me is a task for the Royal Institute of Dutch Architects or, if they don’t want to do it, clubs like Booosting.
Given that the copyright protection of architectural designs is rather tricky, making a design available by means of a CC license may be just as problematic. Because if you steal something yourself, you can’t just go around giving it to everyone for nothing like an architectural Robin Hood. But that’s a point to be dealt with later; let’s now start a trial process. In the meantime, technical discoveries – and every architect comes up with clever solutions that other architects could benefit from – can be shared much more easily. That’s where we could start, and Mei Architecten is taking a lead here.
So, architects of the Netherlands, do as Mei are doing and join the open source culture of the 21st century and start by creating a culture of sharing in architecture and in the design of construction components. Don’t be so ridiculous when it comes to copyright for designers. After all, it’s largely a formality. Develop Creative Commons Licenses for architecture and construction. Set up a collective database of these licenses with the conditions and with licensed products and designs, and share these with the world. Promote innovation by actually sharing knowledge and experience with the entire architecture and construction world.
Go Open Source!