GIVING IT AWAY

Creative Commons continues to strike important new ground, this time with a new Developing Nations Copyright Licence.

Creative Commons Licences allow copyright holders to declare "some rights reserved" as opposed to the "all rights reserved" of traditional copyright. I have a Creative Commons Licence covering the photos at my Web site a way of shouting, which gives people permission, among other things, to freely use my copyrighted work as long as they aren't making money off them.

The Developing Nations Licence adds a new wrinkle: you can now set restrictions for, say, Canada and the U.S., while allowing more open use of copyrighted material in lesser developed countries.

This license can be used in a few ways. It can be combined with something currently licensed under a more restrictive license, so that your photographs could be protected from commercial use in the United States, but if it also carried a Developing Nations license, those same photos could be used commerically in say, Brazil. You might also be a musician or photographer that wants to maintain full copyright in North America and Western Europe, but welcome use by others in the countries of Southeast Asia.

This is a great idea: if someone in a developing country can make money off something I create (doubtful, I know), good for them. (Good for me, too: karma points.)

A creative approach to copyright, like that taken by Creative Commons, makes more sense in a wired, wired world than does the hysterical yapping of the movie/music/entertainment industry determined to stretch existing law (or have new laws written) to take away rights of use that we currently enjoy.

11:38:39 PM