> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.opendemocracy.net/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Tony in Rio - Taxi Especial and Creative Commons
- URL: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/19289/
- Published: 2006-06-22T18:06:05.000Z
- Updated: 2019-02-14T22:34:58.000Z
- Author: openDemocracy Supporters
- Tags: #en, #Migrated, #Import 2026-04-09 18:15

5:00 am, cleared customs at Rio; sleepy, excited to be here for the first  
time, I follow a well-dressed man who wants to be my taxi ... until, in the  
empty lot, I think I should probably not be getting into an unmarked, unmetered  
limo. I say: "Sorry. I want an official taxi." "I am official", he protests,  
showing me a plastified card saying: "Taxi Especial." Well, I don't tell him  
that "Especial" was not top of my list of priorities this morning.  
  
Paula, young, professional, Australian, who has been following another well-dressed man,  
catches my eye and says to me: \`\`Oh! That's what I want too. I think I'll  
stick with you." We've wasted 5 precious minutes of these guys' time - just  
the time when other passengers, less paranoid than us, might have followed  
through with the transaction. I apologise again, and he grudgingly points me  
to the rank.  
  
Anything to do with iCommons?  
  
A bit. The "grey economy" taxi driver has a real problem of trust to  
overcome. The official, regulated, oligopolised taxis offer me, the neophyte  
here, the great advantage of a sense of quality control, of recourse, of being  
able to go after someone if things go wrong. In a way, this is what  
branded - usually copyright - material does too: "it won't waste your time,  
offend your sensibilities, take you off limits, because the brand, like the  
taxi medallion, was expensive to establish and could be quickly revoked."  
  
(That is also what is wrong with it: quality "control" will also restrict,  
level, stifle, etc. The standard product is made worse just for being  
standard).  
  
The taxi medallion has its use - although I'm all for the cartel-buster in  
theory if not in this particular case in practice - and the media brand will  
always have one too. Can we reproduce the function of the brand - the  
shorthand for the content, the believable signal - without strong (copyright)  
ownership of the product? Yes, we will -- there are digital communities that create permanent value without strong ownership (my own fav - [slashdot](http://slashdot.org/?ref=opendemocracy.net)). But there aren't that many examples, especially outside the tech space.

The link between brand and ownership is investment: there is no reputation  
if it has not been hard or costly to acquire; and who invests if they cannot  
enjoy the returns? The secret, I think, is that many cultural creators will create even without the distant promise of a royalty stream.  
  
I am not a pessimist about how we make "quasi-brands" in a world of weaker ownership. But my pragmatism keeps me asking: what are the 3, or 5 or 8 things we need to do to operationalise this idea. I will be keeping my ear to the  
ground over these next few days at [iCommons 2006](http://icommons.org/?ref=opendemocracy.net) for this sort of insight.

I'll let you know how I get on.  
  
Oh, by the way, Paula - very nice person. She was here working on assuring  
the production rights for next year's American Games to be held in Rio. We  
may have agreed on taxis, but we found plenty to disagree about on the drive  
down to Copacabana.