6 ms·

Understanding Free Cultural Works

67 points by exolymph 7y ago

Tomte 7y ago
I feel that Creative Commons had a lot of mindshare ten years ago, but today next to nobody really thinks or talks about it. Is it just me? Also, is Lawrence Lessig still active?
- hutzlibu 7y ago
  I also seldom read it advocated, but maybe it also is, because it is already quite established? (relativly speaking) On many sites, I find the CC disclaimer to my joy, of course not nearly as I want to, but still quite a lot.
- nervuri 7y ago
  > Also, is Lawrence Lessig still active? He hosts https://equalcitizens.us/anotherway/ https://equalcitizens.us/anotherway/
- Hokusai 7y ago
  > but today next to nobody really thinks or talks about it. How much that is similar on how Linux evangelization is also harder to find? Linux won the battle, Cloud computing is mainly an unchallenged Linux realm. I see many institutions adopting Creative Commons and similar permissive licenses. So, there is no need to pontificate about Creative Commons anymore. From teacher to newspapers use Wikipedia as a reliable source. Even The British Museum (https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permissions https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permis...) uses Creative Commons licenses. For me it seems that Creative Commons is the status quo and the focus rather changes towards the content itself and what can be produced.
- DaedalusPsyk 7y ago
  Perhaps, depends on your circles too I guess. That said, I think it's partly because it succeeded in many ways. It has become an established and accepted concept which we don't often stop to appreciate.
- tduberne 7y ago
  It is very present in the current discussion around open access publications in academia. Lots of universities and funding agencies encourage or even enforce that scientific papers and/or teaching material they finance be published under a CC license.
- skyfaller 7y ago
  I think the two biggest factors leading to the decline of free culture as a movement were: (1) Lessig (who coined the term "free culture" and helped found many related organizations) leaving the movement to focus on e.g. money in politics, and (2) The absence of any big tent organization promoting free culture as a movement, rather than focusing narrowly on a specific topic e.g. licenses as Creative Commons does. I co-founded the now defunct Students for Free Culture, and we were trying to do this, but we were focused on the youth demographic. Nobody ever took up the banner for the world at large, and when SFC died it felt like that was kind of the end of evangelizing for free culture.
robin_reala 7y ago
The important thing about CC0 is that it’s an active declaration of permissivity that bypasses a bunch of the various public domain laws around the world. Just stating that something’s believed to be in the public domain is useful as a starting point but it’s not an explicit licence.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Even stating in writing that I hereby place this code/document/etc. in the public domain doesn't work for some companies because, as you suggest, the status of public domain around the world is ambiguous. (This is basically the reason the original MIT/X Consortium license was created.)
- mormegil 7y ago
  This is a bit misleading, IMHO. The important difference between CC0 and public domain is that PD is a copyright status, while CC0 is a license. Which means you use CC0 to grant PD-like status to works you hold the copyright for. You cannot (should not) attach a CC0 to somebody else's work just because you think it is PD. And vice versa: while stating "I release my work into PD" is probably usable in the US, it is really incompatible with the continental construction of copyright; for that, the explicit granting of a "most possibly free" license is a better fit. (Even though you might doubt even CC0 is bulletproof there...)
spodek 7y ago
I trace free licenses to the GNU General Public License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License, which is why I believe that in time Richard Stallman's influence will become greater than those of contemporaries like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.
egypturnash 7y ago
Not discussed in this, but important in understanding Free Cultural Works: how does the person who creates a Free Cultural Work pay their bills while doing it?
- Noos 7y ago
  this needs to honestly be discussed more. Even though the article is more about discussion restrictions on the concept, the whole point of non-free culture should be to ensure the artist can realize monetary gains from his work in order to reward the time spent. Also to enable the artist to have some control over the distribution and direction of his work, as well as incentivize new and original work. CC doesn't do anything for the artist. it's great for distributors, who can aggregate and monetize free content, and remixers, who have a base of ready-made content to use as a basis for their own works. And of course the audience. But i don't really see the point of it as an artist.
  - pabs3 7y ago
    It has been said (in another cartoon) that the greatest threat to artists isn't piracy, its obscurity: https://mimiandeunice.com/2010/11/17/obscurity/ https://mimiandeunice.com/2010/11/17/obscurity/
    - whiddershins 7y ago
      Oddly they go together hand in hand.
  - skyfaller 7y ago
    Saying that "providing works that other people are free to build on doesn't do anything for the artist" is rather short-sighted. Imagine someone living on a river saying, "Keeping the river water clean doesn't do anything for me!" OK, maybe your pollution doesn't affect you, it only affects people downstream of you. But if the people upstream pollute the river, you'll wish they hadn't. It's also untrue that artists are distinct from remixers. Is "West Side Story" just a remix of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"? I think often of The Time John Fogerty Was Sued for Ripping Off John Fogerty: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-was-sued-ripping-john-fogerty https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-... Fogerty was just trying to write songs, but unsurprisingly his new songs sounded similar to his old songs, which had ended up under someone else's control. Was he "remixing" himself? Making art that is entirely new and does not relate to or reflect on any past art is almost impossible. As Lessig put it: - Creativity always builds on the past - The past tries to control the creativity that builds upon it - Free societies enable creativity by limiting this power of the past - Ours is less and less a free society

67 points by exolymph 7y ago

I feel that Creative Commons had a lot of mindshare ten years ago, but today next to nobody really thinks or talks about it. Is it just me? Also, is Lawrence Lessig still active?

hutzlibu 7y ago
I also seldom read it advocated, but maybe it also is, because it is already quite established? (relativly speaking) On many sites, I find the CC disclaimer to my joy, of course not nearly as I want to, but still quite a lot.
nervuri 7y ago
> Also, is Lawrence Lessig still active? He hosts https://equalcitizens.us/anotherway/ https://equalcitizens.us/anotherway/
Hokusai 7y ago
> but today next to nobody really thinks or talks about it. How much that is similar on how Linux evangelization is also harder to find? Linux won the battle, Cloud computing is mainly an unchallenged Linux realm. I see many institutions adopting Creative Commons and similar permissive licenses. So, there is no need to pontificate about Creative Commons anymore. From teacher to newspapers use Wikipedia as a reliable source. Even The British Museum (https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permissions https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permis...) uses Creative Commons licenses. For me it seems that Creative Commons is the status quo and the focus rather changes towards the content itself and what can be produced.
DaedalusPsyk 7y ago
Perhaps, depends on your circles too I guess. That said, I think it's partly because it succeeded in many ways. It has become an established and accepted concept which we don't often stop to appreciate.
tduberne 7y ago
It is very present in the current discussion around open access publications in academia. Lots of universities and funding agencies encourage or even enforce that scientific papers and/or teaching material they finance be published under a CC license.
skyfaller 7y ago
I think the two biggest factors leading to the decline of free culture as a movement were: (1) Lessig (who coined the term "free culture" and helped found many related organizations) leaving the movement to focus on e.g. money in politics, and (2) The absence of any big tent organization promoting free culture as a movement, rather than focusing narrowly on a specific topic e.g. licenses as Creative Commons does. I co-founded the now defunct Students for Free Culture, and we were trying to do this, but we were focused on the youth demographic. Nobody ever took up the banner for the world at large, and when SFC died it felt like that was kind of the end of evangelizing for free culture.

robin_reala 7y ago

The important thing about CC0 is that it’s an active declaration of permissivity that bypasses a bunch of the various public domain laws around the world. Just stating that something’s believed to be in the public domain is useful as a starting point but it’s not an explicit licence.

ghaff 7y ago
Even stating in writing that I hereby place this code/document/etc. in the public domain doesn't work for some companies because, as you suggest, the status of public domain around the world is ambiguous. (This is basically the reason the original MIT/X Consortium license was created.)
mormegil 7y ago
This is a bit misleading, IMHO. The important difference between CC0 and public domain is that PD is a copyright status, while CC0 is a license. Which means you use CC0 to grant PD-like status to works you hold the copyright for. You cannot (should not) attach a CC0 to somebody else's work just because you think it is PD. And vice versa: while stating "I release my work into PD" is probably usable in the US, it is really incompatible with the continental construction of copyright; for that, the explicit granting of a "most possibly free" license is a better fit. (Even though you might doubt even CC0 is bulletproof there...)

spodek 7y ago

I trace free licenses to the GNU General Public License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License, which is why I believe that in time Richard Stallman's influence will become greater than those of contemporaries like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

egypturnash 7y ago

Not discussed in this, but important in understanding Free Cultural Works: how does the person who creates a Free Cultural Work pay their bills while doing it?

Noos 7y ago
this needs to honestly be discussed more. Even though the article is more about discussion restrictions on the concept, the whole point of non-free culture should be to ensure the artist can realize monetary gains from his work in order to reward the time spent. Also to enable the artist to have some control over the distribution and direction of his work, as well as incentivize new and original work. CC doesn't do anything for the artist. it's great for distributors, who can aggregate and monetize free content, and remixers, who have a base of ready-made content to use as a basis for their own works. And of course the audience. But i don't really see the point of it as an artist.
- pabs3 7y ago
  It has been said (in another cartoon) that the greatest threat to artists isn't piracy, its obscurity: https://mimiandeunice.com/2010/11/17/obscurity/ https://mimiandeunice.com/2010/11/17/obscurity/
  - whiddershins 7y ago
    Oddly they go together hand in hand.
- skyfaller 7y ago
  Saying that "providing works that other people are free to build on doesn't do anything for the artist" is rather short-sighted. Imagine someone living on a river saying, "Keeping the river water clean doesn't do anything for me!" OK, maybe your pollution doesn't affect you, it only affects people downstream of you. But if the people upstream pollute the river, you'll wish they hadn't. It's also untrue that artists are distinct from remixers. Is "West Side Story" just a remix of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"? I think often of The Time John Fogerty Was Sued for Ripping Off John Fogerty: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-was-sued-ripping-john-fogerty https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/27501/time-john-fogerty-... Fogerty was just trying to write songs, but unsurprisingly his new songs sounded similar to his old songs, which had ended up under someone else's control. Was he "remixing" himself? Making art that is entirely new and does not relate to or reflect on any past art is almost impossible. As Lessig put it: - Creativity always builds on the past - The past tries to control the creativity that builds upon it - Free societies enable creativity by limiting this power of the past - Ours is less and less a free society