What happens when we turn a part of the law that has become sacrosanct across the world — the economic rights of IP producers — against its intended purpose? 

What if IP producers reclaim the legal and economic scaffolding surrounding their individual creative works to protect social actions, be in solidarity with workers in supply chains, or highlight the absurdity of maximalist intangible property?

Join our experiment in art and law! We are building a commons that unites artists in changing the terms upon which our art enters the economy. Our experiment utilizes the legal technology of copyright, which gives an artist the right to exclude others from using their art on whatever terms the artist includes in a copyright license.

If artists are willing to strategically activate the terms upon which their art enters the market, could we relocate the political agency of Art? 

By recording a regular signature combined with an IP morals clause, we create a registry that artists can use to tag their art with their morals. These tools empower artists to wield their IP, individually or collectively, in solidarity actions (or “performances”). IP can be used powerfully in protest against gentrification and surveillance. They also easily enable solidarity actions with IP producers across the globe. 

The idea is to really expand the field of who is considered an Artist and allow everyday life-art and all kinds of creators to unite and create a sustainable economy through the innovative PPAC Art License. Performing Pro Arts COMMONS (PPAC) transmedia performance script is a copyright license and experimentation in using the law as a medium for building an Activist Art machine and practicing community self-defense and care, through the act of occupying intellectual property.  Dadais Americanus is a pseudonym used for Art made in the COMMONS that was registered with the US Copyright Office in 2020. Any creator can assume this name for a DaDA performance under the PPAC copyright license, and for artistic transgressions that defy the systems of power. 

A new currency for the art world 

If we are creating a new art market, it follows that we will reconsider what constitutes fair labor and how the value of art is appraised. We will create an alternative currency that builds community assets and social capital, as well as solidarity among all participants, and private and public partners. By linking art to IP-defined Art, an alternative currency used for the exchange of art could be backed by IP. The value of IP is already recognized within the world of fiat currency, which would enable the alternative currency to have immediate and recognized value within the current economy

An IP-backed alternative currency could have real potential to compete alongside fiat currency, and at least theoretically (IP is deemed to constitute upwards of 84% of the value of Fortune 500 companies), replace fiat currency. By linking the availability of the alternative currency to compliance with the morals clauses that exist inside the IP licenses used by the commons, the morals clauses could function as the means for reconfiguration of the capitalist structures. 

If we sufficiently expand the commons to incorporate as many artists as possible who wish to participate in a world of basic income and profit sharing (e.g., including artists like inventors who create high-value industrial art), the commons could become a self-sustaining vehicle for self-governance and equitable redistribution, co-created by all commoners. The sense of self and purpose that could arise from a group of Art commoners, all creating and producing art for the purpose of collective liberation, could be an explosive source of creative inspiration. Such inspiration may create positive feedback loops for creating more and more inspired Art.

There are three steps to join:

1. Read the Reframing Essay and the PPAC Constitutional Script

The Reframing Essay and PPAC Constitutional Script provide a vision and a basic structure for COMMUNION. As the Constitution evolves, we will keep a living version on this website.

2. Create and submit a morals clause to the Commons

The morals clause is essentially the new canvas that Performing Pro Arts COMMONS license is offering to artists. It is a space inside of a contract between the artist and the rest of the world, where the artist can create new economic imaginaries with real-world economic effect. OccupyIP will provide training for the artists to learn basic techniques in making art with morals clauses and connecting the morals clause to the artwork itself. OccupyIP is committed to using these techniques for abolitionist goals and will provide abolitionist-inspired templates for morals clauses, but the techniques can be applied for any purpose.

Each artist submits a morals clause to the COMMUNION, which is governed by amalgamation and engagement between artists’ morals clauses. The structure is intended to embrace the anarchy of any diverging morals between and among artists. COMMUNION is designed to transform points of conflict into co-created art and to bring healing attention to the alienation that exists between artists and the commercialization of art. 

3. Create a PPAC signature/mark/tag and stake an artwork behind it  

This last step does two things: (a) it allows artists to create a signature/mark/tag that will attach the artist’s morals clause to their art and (b) it asks the artist to put something of value with their tag into the Commons. 

The signature/mark/tag will be kept in a PPAC archive and correlated to your morals clause. Ultimately, we want this archive to be a block chain, but for now it will just be an online repository that empowers artists to use their morals clause in any art action that they want.

The staking of the artwork is important because we want the COMMONS to be a place for experimentation with royalty creation and sharing. The experiments will be co-decided and co-managed by the COMMONers. OccupyIP will present some examples of how different models could work. 

ARE YOU READY TO OCCUPY IP AND ENTER THE PRO ARTS COMMUNION?

BIG PICTURE:

Everyone contributes morals, a mark/signature/tag, and a piece of art, and we improvise, in orbit around the collective mass of our art. We cooperate to get paid for any and all of the art inside the COMMUNION, equitably sharing all of the profits. The COMMUNION can collectively decide how to best structure the equitable distribution of profits, but the default will be evenly distributed among all participants.

Although the profits are redistributed inside of the COMMUNION, any artworks sold or licensed by the Commons will only bear the marks and moral clauses of the actual creators. In this way, the COMMUNION is entirely compatible with artists who want to participate in multiple commons and maintain a unique identity as an artist, independent from any collaborative/commons.

The ultimate goal is to have the COMMUNION become a new economic engine for artists that empowers them to maintain the integrity of their art and their politics while providing economic stability and a support network in the COMMUNION.