creative commons and wikieducator debate
Bronwyn Hegarty
I have watched Leigh steadily burning up this week as he continues the debate/argument regarding the use of creative commons licensing by attribution versus by attribution share alike. I stumbled upon this wonderful article ( Rory McGreal (2004) Stealing the Goose: Copyright and learning - At http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/205/819) which sums it all up really (full ref & abstract below) and helped me see the light.
now Leigh I can see where you are coming from. If we start adding restrictions to WikiEducator such as Share alike, we may be in danger of leaning in the direction of the "copyright controllers" mentioned in the article and will be guilty of deviating from the philosophy of the learning commons. What I believe is that people are scared the copyright controllers will come along and destroy the philosophy of WikiEducator if they don't have to share alike.
So I ask, do we want to be guilty of becoming "property-rights fundamentalists"? - read p3 of the article to find out more about this idea. This will happen if we become too restrictive even within the Creative Commons umbrella.
I was particularly interested in the history of copy right. Note the gap. Apologies to all of you who probably knew all this anyway but it is an epiphany to find something so well explained about something which has always bugged me.
Abstract
The Internet is the world's largest knowledge common and the information source of first resort. Much of this information is open and freely available. However, there are organizations and companies today that are trying to close off the Internet commons and make it proprietary. These are the "copyright controllers." The preservation of the commons and expanding access to digital content and applications are very important for distance educators. The educational exemptions for "fair use" in the United States and "fair dealing" in the Commonwealth countries are integral to any understanding of copyright, which was instituted for the dissemination of knowledge, and not, as is commonly believed, to protect the rights of the copyright owners. Copyright law was expressly introduced to limit their rights. Yet, these controllers are successfully turning a "copy" right into a property right. The traditional rights of learning institutions are being taken away. The balance for researchers should be restored. Research and learning must be allowed the broad interpretation that was intended in the original laws.
Rory McGreal Stealing the Goose: Copyright and learning
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning
Volume 5, Number 3. ISSN: 1492-3831
November – 2004
At http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/205/819
Leigh Blackall
Share Alike is a restriction that will create difficulties for some educational institutions (at least the ones that strive to manage their copy rights well and simply). I certainly prefer the more flexible CC BY with the only restriction being to properly attribute the original author/s (even that can become a headache at time though).
I don't believe that the SA mechanism ensures the proliferation or even protection of free culture. I believe free culture is growing regardless of the SA mechanism. Legal restrictions on copyright are almost impossible to govern at the level we operate. Sure! there have been some dispicable battles, but I still have a bunch of pirate DVD, software, photocopied books, peer shared music, and Youtube downloads and and and. So, aside from the world of the few, where does SA actually happen? Free culture is growing not from legal mechanism, but from the growth of the free spirit you refer to. I would rather believe that too.
Thanks for the link, and keeping this issue alive Bron.
--
Leigh Blackall
+64(0)21736539
skype - leigh_blackall
http://leighblackall.wikispaces.org/
Janet Hawtin
which they would like to ensure remains free, but which may interface
with non free materials.
The LGPL is used in order to ensure that for example if A person makes X
B person makes XYz
C person makes XM
A person is able to work with the derivatives of their work in so far as
they are able to work with XY and XM, z is restricted material and
cannot be reused, but this means that the original work licenced
freely is still useful to A even after B has used it with restricted
material.
B needs to understand that they are mixing different licences and make
the XYz thing in such a way that XY can be distributed without z. ie
modular.
I don't understand why when it comes to licensing materials people
look at the model that CC offers and say nothing is possible because
it wont fit that specific licensing group.
MIT uses a licence which is free except that they choose to do the
development of their project in house, they use an MIT licence. It is
true that it is easier to fit in with an existing model, SA does not
fit your purpose.
This does not make SA fundamentalist, it means it is a shoe which does
not fir your foot. This does not mean it is a shoe which is not useful
for other peoples' feet.
I suggest folks who want to be able to reuse their work, even after
someone else mixes it with restricted materials looks at the licences
that other people have used in those mixed environments.
LGPL is a common one. It retains freedom and specifies how adjoinging
restricted materials should interact. Check it out and adapt it if it
does not fit your purpose.
It is likely in the education sector that if one person finds a model
which fits them that others may find that close to comfortable too, or
you can talk about how you make and modify a licence which is a good
fit for sector broadly.
Attribution is tricky to do for infinite generations and complex projects.
Is it your primary need for a licnece, it might be, but it might be
that youre happy to be credited initially but that after x generations
there are 500 contributors who
are more useful to be named because they understand and support the
current generation of works. So long as the moral right that you
started the ball rolling is there then it is not so critical to ensure
that it is a brand on all items. imho
This is how I shape my licensing shoes.
It is more important to me that the meme is free for the infinite gen people
and that they can use it fully. That I can come back to it and know i
can use it and build things around the derivative works because they
will be free, and that restricted work will be able to be separated as
a module i can skip for other purposes.
In the edu sector if youre developing anything the whole precept is
that you make things once and repurpose for other clients, cohorts,
sectors, communities.
Coding an original program for each customer's restricted content is
not sustainable imho. Groups which reuse are moving faster than those
using a build once use once model.
BSD uses a licence which does not guarantee future freedom.
Ubuntu uses GPL.
The Linux community attracts many coders because they can be sure they
will continue to have access to derivatives of their work freely
regardless of who else contributes downstream.
BSD or open source licensed work can often be free for only one
generation and then derivatives can become closed again - even closed
to the original contributors.
imho The problem with much of the debate about these issues is that they see
information and ideas as components in an ownership box and talk from
the perspective of one person, they do not see it as dialogue which a
social function and purpose, as a legacy or underlying materials from
which the next generations are freely able to make new ideas. As
educators this sector should surely be able to see from the
perspective of a child or learner's right to engage with the materials
of their culture and context as a free person and not as a subscriber
to a previous generation.
What good is being a more closely connected world if it just means
broadcasters and riaa can stop people further away from engaging fully
with each other and the cultural state of play that we are all a part
of.
Frankly the broadcasters and DRM, DMCA proponents are very happy with
that kind of franchise culture model. If we are not thoughtful and
thorough about what ELSE is important in the way that information and
ideas function then thinking outside the box will be an infringement
of someone's rights.
Janet
Janet Hawtin
should include funds for publishing so that the person is paid for
their full amount of work and that the results do not need to be
restricted to enable the work to be published.
It would be great if more of that kind of do it differently so that
commerce or business does not depend on restriction. Teaching and law
are business models which are not primarily rights based, although
there are schools in the states which require students to sign NDA to
ensure that they do not infringe the school's property by tutoring
friends.
The more restricted the structures become the more that communities
will operate completely at odds with the systems that disenfranchise
them.
Binary rights, ie I have it therefore you dont are anathema to a free nation,
rights which enable us to all benefit are a more worthy goal. imho.
We have to have the intent for things to be free AND to work as a business for
us to look at the parts of our community which already or still
function that way.
We have to understand what we want to value as public goods and
benefits and conceptual playdoh.
I have some badly written fiction which I wrote to think through the end games
and possible interactions which would be likely if we continue in this vein.
http://lucychili.net/refraction/?p=1
It is a series of posts written by different characters.
It will probably be a bit disjointed as there was quite a bit in
notebooks that I did not end up typing in.
I havent really made it public because they are just scratchy
hypotheticals, but I guess I feel it would be good to help people
think about what we do want as our long term goals. ie If not this way
which way?
Cheers from here =)
Janet
Kylie Rowsell
Thanks,
Kylie
Training Coordinator
Hunter Councils Learning and Development
ph: 4978 4016
Kylie Rowsell
Thanks,
Kylie
Training Coordinator
Hunter Councils Learning and Development
ph: 4978 4016
-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Janet Hawtin
Sent: Saturday, 5 May 2007 10:50 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: creative commons and wikieducator debate
Leigh Blackall
B needs to understand that they are mixing different licences and make
the XYz thing in such a way that XY can be distributed without z. ie
modular.
answers your question:
I don't understand why when it comes to licensing materials people
look at the model that CC offers and say nothing is possible because
it wont fit that specific licensing group.
I haven't found anyone saying that nothing is possible under CC. What is being said (by me at least) is that CC SA does not work almost eqally as much as NC and ND. BUT CC BY does work.
CC is preferred because of its initial simplicity. It has a recognisable logo (ie not a caricature of a wildebeest), is comprehensible at a glance, and legally recognised in multiple jurisdictions.. and multiple languages. GPL is difficult to read, long winded and not easily recognised at a glance. There would be one intuitive reason why CC has been adopted by leading Internet services such as Yahoo, Google, Flickr and Blip to name a few.
B needs to understand that they are mixing different licences and make
the XYz thing in such a way that XY can be distributed without z. ie
modular.
Its around about then that I show them FlickrCC. "You see! Its actually quite easy to find reusable images. See that NC, SA, and ND version of CC? Ignore that, it could make it harder for you.. and you want easy peazy right? CC BY is for you. And did you know that there's lots of other media under CC BY? All you need to do is attribute everything you sample - the same way you reference someone in an essay." I get disgruntled looks, followed by questions like - "do I really have to do this? I thought educational use was OK for copying? and anyway, is it really copying?" !!
Remembering to attribute, manage multiple licenses AND design resources so that so called "free" content can remain free of non free content! There are 3 extra things you are asking me to ask of teachers who loath the fact that they have to work with "technology" in the first place!!
CC BY is much easier.
Here's something I noted elsewhere as I read up on all this stuff:
This document defines "Free Cultural Works" as works or expressions which can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose. It also describes certain permissible restrictions that respect or protect these essential freedoms. The definition distinguishes between free works, and free licenses which can be used to legally protect the status of a free work. The definition itself is not a license; it is a tool to determine whether a work or license should be considered "free."
Free Cultural Works Definition
I will try to point out that copyleft mechanisms should be defined seperately in any definition of free cultural works, and perhaps be reconsidered as an appropriate inclusion into the definition because copyleft works do not allow someone to freely apply, copy or modify a work, without agreeing to adopt a copyleft license on the derivative. There are some situations where such a copyleft clause may negatively impact on a person's freedoms with the original work because of the restriction placed on any derivative use of that original work. I believe that the understanding of free cultural works is incomplete and that the acceptance of copyleft into the domain for free cultural works is contradictory and misleading. For example in the terminology use in the [http://freedomdefined.org/Definition summary of a definition for free cultural works}:
...free licenses which can be used to legally protect the status of a free work. when used to understand a copyleft arrangement is misleading because a copyleft license does not protect the freedoms of the original work but instead ensures and attempts to promote the freedom of a derivative work. A copyleft restriction has little to do with the freedoms of an original work and more to do with the freedoms of a derivative and so the terminology might be more accurate if said in this way, ...licenses that restrict use and modifications so as to ensure and promote the use of compatible licenses on derivative works. Respect and protection misleads the understanding of the relationship copyleft has to the original work as the actual function of the mechanism is designed to legally force derivative works to adopt the same mechanism.
James Neill
licensing and just sticking one's content in the public domain?
it all ends up there after you're dead, eventually, so why wait?
Janet Hawtin
> Hi Janet,
>
> > B needs to understand that they are mixing different licences and make
> > the XYz thing in such a way that XY can be distributed without z. ie
> > modular.
>
> answers your question:
>
> > I don't understand why when it comes to licensing materials people
> > look at the model that CC offers and say nothing is possible because
> > it wont fit that specific licensing group.
>
> I haven't found anyone saying that nothing is possible under CC. What is
> being said (by me at least) is that CC SA does not work almost eqally as
> much as NC and ND. BUT CC BY does work.
Share alike and GPL work in contexts where the participants intend
that their work be free.
GPL participants aim to make a collective sustainable free product.
LGPL components are fringe aspects of a body of work in order to
interface with technologies or material which is not in step in a
licence sense.
GPL and SA were not designed for a context where people want to mix
and match because that is not their purpose. They are licences written
in order to secure a body of work for future participants.
> CC is preferred because of its initial simplicity. It has a recognisable
> logo (ie not a caricature of a wildebeest), is comprehensible at a glance,
> and legally recognised in multiple jurisdictions.. and multiple languages.
> GPL is difficult to read, long winded and not easily recognised at a glance.
GPL is
You can use things I've made so long as, when you distribute them, the
people after you have the same right to participate as I am giving
you. If you do not wish to provide those freedoms to future
participants you can still use and modify the software but please dont
distribute it.
Freedom to access
Freedom to use
Freedom to modify
Freedom to distribute
Rocket science. =)
Both CC and GPL models have the legalese versions. For my mileage GPL
is more explicit about the rights of the person reusing materials
because it is written with those people in mind. I find that CC seems
to have more of a focus on flexibility for creators and can be
ambiguous for users. eg. When does SA apply, as soon as I use it?
Mileage will definitely vary. Licensing is personal and contextual. It
is a means we are using to define the relationship we are building
with the people who interact with our information selves.
Some languages have formal GPL translations some are informal at this stage.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/translations.html
> There would be one intuitive reason why CC has been adopted by leading
> Internet services such as Yahoo, Google, Flickr and Blip to name a few.
Google uses open source technology, sponsors Linux conference events.
Many of the worlds web servers run on Apache,(Apache licence) you use
Ubuntu(GPL). Point being, people use the licence which fits their
purpose.
If your purpose is to have a sustainable body of work which will be
accessible for future participants the GPL is a licence which has been
written with that in mind specifically. LGPL has been written for code
which is bridging between licence models.
If you know your core goal you will be able to find the attributes of
the licence you want, whether it is MIT GPL CCby C BSD NEALs, your
own?
> Its around about then that I show them FlickrCC. "You see! Its actually
> quite easy to find reusable images. See that NC, SA, and ND version of CC?
> Ignore that, it could make it harder for you.. and you want easy peazy
> right? CC BY is for you. And did you know that there's lots of other media
> under CC BY? All you need to do is attribute everything you sample - the
> same way you reference someone in an essay." I get disgruntled looks,
> followed by questions like - "do I really have to do this? I thought
> educational use was OK for copying? and anyway, is it really copying?" !!
Flickr is using Apache webserving, HTML, TCPIP JPEG PNG SVG all these
open technologies and file formats which are not CC but which you
understand are free for use.
Educational use used to be ok for taking excerpts for educational purposes.
This is why people look askance. The boundaries are moving.
The 'traditional contours of copyright' was a core concept in case
Lessig fought recently. The judge deemed that they had not changed, I
cannot see an attribute of the copyright law which has not changed so
I dont understand how that works.
Music bands sue each other for sub second instances of reuse of sounds.
Fair use is not available in AU and yet much debate around copyright
is about that it is ok because of fair use. Apparently we do not have
fair use from the recent round of DMCA updating because it would not
comply with our USFTA treaty obligation.
Copyright is not simply a matter of good owners and bad pirates it is
a matter of who controls culture. What kinds of organisational models
do people use formally and informally. What kinds of fundamental
collective rights we believe will make our culture sustainable and
accessible for the future, what kinds of business models and
frameworks will help individuals to profit from their work. These two
goals are not necessarily mutually exclusive perhaps but the
individual rights are currently making a great mess of the collective
participation in culture and our ability to share both responsibility
for and opportunities to participate in our cultural state of play.
Brokering organisations are using a model which manages the output of
creators in a broadcast model to further its own purposes. This model
does not work well when the creators are distributed and can
communicate directly.
RIAA now wants to collect$ for any music broadcast online regardless
of whether it has any relationship with the creator of the music. This
even has an impact on people who create and broadcast their own
material. Pay RIAA to speak.
The introduction of technologies which enable us to be more closely connected
do pose a challenge for broadcast distributors. They also pose an
opportunity for brokering organisations. They facilitate closer
mapping of our use of information and the tools to shift the edge of
revenue raising activities closer in around our individual and
cultural interactions with information and each other. RIAA is closer
to us too. Vista knows and cares about the kinds of material we watch
and make. This is a kind of cultural colonisation. It is basically a
franchising of our opportunity to interact with the ideas and
materials we have around us. We no longer own our goods and chattels,
we are subscribers to copyright culture.
> Remembering to attribute, manage multiple licenses AND design resources so
> that so called "free" content can remain free of non free content! There are
> 3 extra things you are asking me to ask of teachers who loath the fact that
> they have to work with "technology" in the first place!!
No. They can make their own drawing and licence it however they like.
With freedom comes responsibility.
People are accustomed to getting free stuff in the $$ sense.
People are less experienced in understanding about participating in
freedom in the cultural sense. Generating materials which are free is
about passing a baton.
If you don't choose to make the materials you accessed freely free for
others, you are potentially the end of the line for that
material/meme.
This is about third parties and whether we care about their right to
participate.
> CC BY is much easier.
A coding project I think called routed was licensed BSD(by)
A company took over maintentance and made it closed.
A third party wrote some fixes and plugins.
The company told them to cease and desist because they are maintaining
the project now.
The company went broke
The material died.
Zebra was a routing protocol
Licensed GPL
The maintainers of the protocol stopped maintaining it.
The project forked.
New people maintained the project Quagga
Quagga lives.
Gnu/Linux, Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu live because a company may not come
in and close off a core piece of the puzzle breaking all the current
and future contributions of other people.
People try. But the GPL is written to secure those freedoms.
> Here's something I noted elsewhere as I read up on all this stuff:
> > This document defines "Free Cultural Works" as works or expressions which
> can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any
> purpose. It also describes certain permissible restrictions that respect or
> protect these essential freedoms. The definition distinguishes between free
> works, and free licenses which can be used to legally protect the status of
> a free work. The definition itself is not a license; it is a tool to
> determine whether a work or license should be considered "free."
> > Free Cultural Works Definition
> > I will try to point out that copyleft mechanisms should be defined
> seperately in any definition of free cultural works, and perhaps be
> reconsidered as an appropriate inclusion into the definition because
> copyleft works do not allow someone to freely apply, copy or modify a work,
> without agreeing to adopt a copyleft license on the derivative. There are
> some situations where such a copyleft clause may negatively impact on a
> person's freedoms with the original work because of the restriction placed
> on any derivative use of that original work. I believe that the
> understanding of free cultural works is incomplete and that the acceptance
> of copyleft into the domain for free cultural works is contradictory and
> misleading. For example in the terminology use in the
> [http://freedomdefined.org/Definition summary of a
> definition for free cultural works}:
This is first generation freedom.
It has no interest in second or third generation freedom.
I made a coarse matrix for assessing freedom at one stage.
It needs work to be usable but it helps me see what people are proposing.
It is at the bottom of a Janet rant on copyright.
http://lucychili.net/au/
The above is a 77770 licence, as is bsd and by.
GPL is a 77737 licence.
The difference is that there is no condition or responsibility for use
in a 77770, but it offers no guarantee of future freedom.
GPL 77737 requires a condition or responsibility of use, and thereby
guarantees future freedom.
> Respect and protection misleads the understanding of
> the relationship copyleft has to the original work as the actual function of
> the mechanism is designed to legally force derivative works to adopt the
> same mechanism.
Turned around it means that the personB wants to use something which
someoneA made and wants to be free. They may not use that Amaterial if
they want to make it unfree for othersCA.
If I make a card game and I make it free.
It would not be polite for someone to use it and licence it in a way
which means that I am not able to participate in the future of the
work with the same freedom that I offered to person B.
If person B wants to licence their own work in a way which is just
about attribution, go for it.
Person A may still licence the derivative SA.
Person D may licence the derivative C or even use DRM.
Person E may licence BY.
Person B may only participate in the future of the work which was
licensed SA or BY.
After x generations it is possible that only the SA work will be left
open for any of the above people to participate in.
Fencing is expensive and generates end of line.
Be careful what you wish for.
An author uses the character Death, lets say Death, Dream, traditional
gods, archetypal characters, monkey, fox, symbols of cleverness,
mischief, a Fool.
While there is still a work in cultural play that expresses those
ideas out of copyright those ideas can be worked with. As soon as we
only publish and retain a copyright memory of these characters folk
and myth and common stories of understanding become property instead
of dialogue. Children learn the stories they may not participate in.
Disney has retold many of these stories. Access to stories which are
not copyrighted
is important for future stories and dialogue, for making communities
which think and make in a constructivist way.
If broadcasters are using the broadcasting treaty to crib futher into
the right to control future transport of ideas they have transmitted
we are very close to a situation where the ideas which are available
on the internet may not be used further without subscription.
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/index.php?p=588&res=1024_ff&print=0
There are good business reasons for these companies to promote their
control of ideas and information. There are equally good reasons for
reasonable people to differ with that model and to specify that their
work will be free for future generations.
If you want cash free stuff with no responsibility you are probably
paying in a different way, as a subscriber to a software company, as a
visitor to a site with advertising, thats all ok and great. Business
models which do not depend on restriction of your access are good. In
my opinion business models which do not rely on restriction and are
able to find ways to guarantee the same freedoms for future
generations are also important.
Janet
Leigh Blackall
The idea that GPL and Share Alike SA ensures the freedom of the original work is not true. It simply ensures the "freedom" of a copy or a derivative work. This is the restriction that I argue can impact negatively on the growth of free culture, such as in educational organisations. So sure! if an individual chooses SA or GPL fine! each to their own, but all this debate comes from the fact that a publishing platform (wikieducator) uses SA as its default and only supported license (practically speaking). And so this lead me into the frustrating debate we are in now. To which the only solution you suggest is to manage mixed licenses. But I think I have already pointed out that this is not practical in most situations due to the difficulty in getting teachers (content creators) to understand their obligations to copyright AND the fact that content is often mixed to such a degree that it is not clear where a restricted item ends and a copyleft begins.
The idea that "with freedom comes responsibility" is the type of language that I find so bewildering about the copyleft movement! People like me who argue that GPL and SA restrict freedoms are not irresponsible with the idea of freedom. It must be that we understand it differently.
Janet Hawtin
> jeez! I'm sorry Janet - I dunno why this debate goes on and on.
Its ok caring about stuff is why we are here I guess.
License your work as you will Leigh. As with all of these projects the
truth will out in the long term outcomes of practical application. =)
For now it would be nice to agree that you see benefit in your
approach, and that I see benefit in mine, and that there is benefit
for some people in each approach.
You are looking for a way to do what you want with no requirement to
plan for downstream impact. You can do more on those terms.
I am looking for a river management system which means we all long
term have more freedom. We are unlikely to agree while you feel that
consideration of downstream is a hassle. Others have found ways to
generate both downstream outcomes and mixed contexts using licences
including LGPL. It does involve some planning and thinking.
FOSS is very much an applied philosophy. If you can prove me wrong
that material licensed BY will be accessible long term then perhaps
the state of play for managing copyright has moved along some. Show me
=) I would be happy if you were right.
I think that we have had a discussion which has covered some of the
options available to people at this point I hope it was useful for
other folks. It is interesting stuff to discuss.
The NEALS licence is an approach for the education sector that we are
likely to hear more about in AU in coming months and that might
provide a different tangent for AU education, although for my money it
looks after organisations and entities rather than communities and
lifelong learning. We need to be vigilant about how our choices impact
people who are not a part of a big entity, impact on the person at
large.
http://www.ais.wa.edu.au/news/index.cfm?view=root&partof=0&action=download&dfile=Neals.pdf
Interesting times
Janet
Leigh Blackall
I've been meaning to do some research on CreativeCommons license statistics. Your post here has prompted me to have a quick look. Some very interesting results, especially comparing CC BY to CC BY SA.
This one is the most up to date I could find: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/License_statistics
Here's some stats for Feb 2005: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5293
And some for April 2006: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5861
CC BY has moved from 8% - 9.7%
CC BY SA from 11% - 13.72%
Which indicates more growth in SA... but of course! its viral I guess. So the growth in BY should be more impressive I think.
Over at Flickr - where I think it deals in mainly primary resources:
Oct 2004 (Way back machine: flickr.com/creativecommons)
CC BY = 8168 photos
CC BY SA = 6150 photos
May 2007 (flickr.com/creativecommons)
CC BY = 4,018,870 photos
CC BY SA = 2,823,490 photos
Interesting isn't it? SA being "viral" would mean it should be growing much faster right? But on a site like flickr what I think it is particularly interesting is the result considering the free choice on what license to use. On sites like Wikipedia, wikieducator and even wikispaces the default is variations of copyleft.
If anyone else would like to help survey license use over time (such as Google's stats if you can find them) I'd really appreciate it.
Regards
Leigh
Janet Hawtin
> Interesting isn't it? SA being "viral" would mean it should be growing much
> faster right? But on a site like flickr what I think it is particularly
> interesting is the result considering the free choice on what license to
> use.
Flickr have chosen to support the CC set of licences specifically.
Perhaps you might find that a different kind of viral? =)
Copyright is also viral.
DRM is an active pathogen =) (literally "birth of pain" from the Greek
παθογένεια)
Flickr looks to contain generally 1st generation images,
ie there are more images by 1 person than images by multiple people.
Its more of a posting space than a mashup space as far as i can see.
YouTube is probably the primary visual mashup space and from what I can see
people do what comes instinctively, they take the cultural material in
their context and repurpose it to express their own voice in that
context. Regardless of their intended role as a subscriber.
> May 2007 (flickr.com/creativecommons)
> CC BY = 4,018,870 photos
> CC BY SA = 2,823,490 photos
From the same page:
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License 10,038,691
Attribution-NoDerivs License 1,309,260
Attribution-NonCommercial License 5,073,189
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License 12,838,989
ie many people just want their exact attributed work distributed,
many think its good to be free for non commercial purposes.
There's a range of 'think' in that spectrum and it doesnt fall neatly
into a by or sa/gpl box or necessarily favour by over sharing
specifically.
There are 12 Cc licences and 3 GPL based licences.
There are many others which fit the same kind of profiles.
> On sites like Wikipedia, wikieducator and even wikispaces the default
> is variations of copyleft.
Wikipedia:
"All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License."
Wikimediacommons:
"Text is available under GNU Free Documentation License."
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Help_desk
All images on Commons are free for any use, although some licenses
require you to credit the original author. PD images are in the Public
Domain, meaning you can use them for anything without any
restrictions. There may be other variants and slightly different
licenses, but in general images here are either free for use with no
restrictions, or must be attributed. A few of the most common (but not
the only) licenses are below:
Public Domain
* {{PD-self}}
* {{PD-USgov}}
Attribution required
* {{cc-by-sa-2.5}}
* {{attribution}}
* {{GFDL}}
GPL/SA is a licence used when you want other people to participate and
contribute something to a larger whole, you can attract their
commitment by using a licence they can count on. Something which will
guarantee their future access to their work and the work around that
which their work may depend on for future relevance/function.
Open clipart uses PD
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Clip_Art_Library
People donate their work and let go.
The image is not interdependent on the openness of other images around
it, it can be used freely, it can be used in material that is closed.
You can use that image in derivatives if you can find it, ie while it
is used in an open product.
This project gets incorporated into distributions such as Ubuntu.
Perhaps that is a model where you can include PD material as content
in a structure which you want to licence differently.
We are living in a time when ideas as property are running up against ideas
as dialogue and cultural habitat. We have to look at our individual
situations and choose carefully for our current purposes and for our
planned longer term goals.
Janet
Bronwyn Hegarty
Bronwyn
Mann, Robert
“Publish and be damned” will never go away.
However there is a degree of respect owed.. The more valued the information the greater the respect, and the more the desire to share. Licensing and copyright is forever negotiating that dissonance.
From:
teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com]
On Behalf Of Bronwyn Hegarty
Sent: Wednesday, 9 May 2007 10:12
AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: creative
commons and wikieducator debate
cos someone might
actually use it and see it!! :O
Bronwyn
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