Creative Commons

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Ruv Draba

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In an idle moment yesterday, I downloaded and played Paolo Pedercini's free game called 'Free Culture'. It's a bit of propaganda with some amusement value. Here's a picture:

Free_Cult_Large.png

In the middle are the Creative Commons. You move yellow ideas round to 'feed' the green people who share the Creative Commons, while competing with the black Copyright monster that tries to suck the ideas away to feed passive grey people on the fringes. People 'fed' from Creative Commons are creative folk, the game teaches us. They produce more ideas, while people who are fed from copyright-controlled content produce nothing. From time to time, unfed green people become grey, while unfed grey people become green. The game quickly teaches you that you do better by moving ideas around quickly, but that you're constantly competing with a monster that repositions itself to suck ideas from far and wide just to feed niche demand.

I thought I'd test the game's thesis here. Just how creative has Creative Commons made you? For instance, to what extent do you rely on Creative Commons to learn how to write? To what extent do you rely on published 'how to write' books, or fee-for-service courses? To what extent do you rely on Creative Commons for story inspiration? To what extent does it come from copy-controlled material?

Personally, my earliest exposure to writing theory came from blog sites and discussion with fellow writers (so, Creative Commons). But frankly, I found that inadequate. I purchased some low-cost e-books (Holly Lisle's, Ken Rand's) to supplement that - and they were helpful, but I found that I still needed basic theory. Eventually I purchased some large-press commercial writing books (like Bickham's Scene and Structure) to round out what I felt I needed to know.

In terms of inspiration, I pretty much ignore fiction in the Creative Commons market unless I have interest in a particular author. The stuff I use for inspiration is all high-quality and copyrighted material.

On the other hand, I probably produce many more words in the Creative Commons helping writers than I do in fiction writing. So I wonder whether I'm a green person or a grey one? I find that once I know something, helping others is very useful in teaching me how best to apply what I know. And sometimes, helping others teaches me what I don't know, but need to. And sometimes (though more rarely) watching other people helping each other helps me too. (Does that make me a green or a grey person? Maybe I write grey fiction but green nonfiction?)

Anyway, from my sample size of one, Paolo's thesis seems a little strained to me. But maybe it's different for others.

How is it for you?
 

Tachyon

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I don't really pay attention to what gives me inspiration or where I get my ideas. That's not important. There's plenty of crap that gets published under regular copyright, just as there's crap that gets published under Creative Commons. The licence doesn't make the ideas any better or worse.

For me, the Creative Commons is important because it represents accessibility. We are at a point where soon technological protection measures may be used to prevent consumers from accessing copyrighted content (i.e., a form of DRM). Whether or not this protection is enforceable (as DRM clearly hasn't been) remains to be seen. Regardless, it would still hurt sectors like education, where teachers might no longer be able to use some materials in lessons. Permissive licenses aid the transmission of ideas. Whether or not those ideas have merit--that's for the consumer to decide.
 

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Copyright doesn't mean pay-to-view. It can be freely available, without being under a creative commons license. This forum is a good example. You have copyright on all your posts, simply through writing them. But you've not released your forum posts under a creative commons license.

The same is true of many blogs, free ebooks and ezines. They're free to view (and sometimes to pass on), but they don't have a creative commons license.

So it's possible that none of the examples you've listed were creative commons. It didn't stop them being free or inspiring you.

All this means I'm not sure what you're asking. I can think of three different questions that you might mean.
  1. How much freely available stuff do I use? Lots. I read lots of free fiction and writing blogs.
  2. How much is under a creative commons license? Very little. Most of the stuff I read is either copyrighted or public domain.
  3. How much is under an alternative license? Some. I use Wikipedia for ideas sometimes, and that uses a GNU Free Documentation License.
 

Ruv Draba

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Copyright doesn't mean pay-to-view. It can be freely available, without being under a creative commons license.
Copyright exists to protect: (i) the right to income from intellectual property and (ii) the right to attribution (aka moral copyright). So while copyrighted work doesn't necessarily mean pay-to-view, it means the right to charge for use. Creative Commons is a proprietary name, but also an idea. I'm talking about the idea, rather than its particular formulation (the term 'commons' originally referred to shared pasture or other land) -- and I believe that's Paolo's usage too. The GNU Free Documentation license is an example of a creative commons instrument too. So to avoid confusion, henceforth I'll keep the term lower-case to designate the idea and not the proprietary instrument.
This forum is a good example. You have copyright on all your posts, simply through writing them. But you've not released your forum posts under a creative commons license
I would have thought so too, but actually I've found that it's quite blurred here. I was surprised to discover a post of mine quoted in full in a comment to a commercial blog (here) not long ago. In other words, it was being used as creative commons work - use it how you like, as long as you attribute it and don't make money from it.

That usage didn't bother me -- though if it had been a SYW post I would have felt very differently. [Of course, once it's out in the blogosphere, one use can spawn other uses that might (eventually) bother me.]

The copyright issue affects creation in two ways - one being access which you mentioned, and the other being use. Anyone can buy copyright fiction, read it, pull it apart and learn from it or be inspired by it. But only some copyright allows you to publish (say) fan-fiction about it, or to sell that fan-fiction. Maybe there are writers who cut their writing teeth on fan-fic who'd feel strongly 'for' Paolo's thesis. Dunno.
 
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Dawnstorm

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I would have thought so too, but actually I've found that it's quite blurred here. I was surprised to discover a post of mine quoted in full in a comment to a commercial blog (here) not long ago. In other words, it was being used as creative commons work - use it how you like, as long as you attribute it and don't make money from it.

That usage didn't bother me -- though if it had been a SYW post I would have felt very differently. [Of course, once it's out in the blogosphere, one use can spawn other uses that might (eventually) bother me.]

I'm still left wondering what the "idea of creative commons" (lower case) is. Things get blurry with forum posts, I agree; but it's more about what should count as "copyrighted material" (the default is: "you write it - it's your copyright"). Do forum posts count?

We make thousands of utterances, daily. What if you make a clever quip to a friend, and that friend passes it on to other friends? Maybe even without attributing it to you (because they can't remember who said it)?

Forums are a rather new kind of social interaction: generally informal, but with the fixed-verbatim-in-time property of writtend-down material. This leads to very different posts, some definitely containing "copyrighted material" (SYW being the prime example; there are formal barriers to block google bots, the reason bein copyright).

See, if you're talking abstract you run into all kinds of problems: A mother reads a children's book to their children. A violation of copyright? "Fair Use"?

In that instance, I suppose you could invoke your copyright and ask to have your "post" removed. If enough people behave like that, people will stop quoting forum posts.

I see the idea behind "creative commons" as a way to protect your right to let other people mess with your work, without you having to waive your copyright completely. But - in both cases - you're still in charge what people can do (depending on the terms you set beforehand).

I see "creative commons" as a flexible tool to deal with the devide between "public domain" and "intellectual property", without taking a hard-and-fast position itself. A legal map to the semantic wasteland, if you will. So - to me - without the capital letters "creative commons" is an empty idea, or a template, or the same old "it's-not-that-simple" contextualised.
 

Ruv Draba

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I'm still left wondering what the "idea of creative commons" (lower case) is. Things get blurry with forum posts, I agree; but it's more about what should count as "copyrighted material" (the default is: "you write it - it's your copyright"). Do forum posts count?
Darned if I know. I'm not taking a position here so much as trying to work out and evaluate the positions.

If I'm not reading too much into his game, Pedercini's thesis seems to be that the primary economic benefit of ideas is that they spawn more ideas. The purpose of copyrighting (so the game seems to say) is to 'cash in' on the idea by creating barriers to access and use. Therefore, if I understand the argument, copyright weakens the intellectual economy -- and judging from the colour scheme, weakens the social fabric as well.

I'm no economist but I can test that thesis individually by seeing how much I depend on low cost, free/easy access and flexible use information to generate my ideas, and whether I prefer to put my ideas into a public domain or some limited domain, or copyright them stringently to cash in on them. My personal observations are that:
  • Wikipedia which is a 'creative commons' concept (or at least 'information commmons') -- has completely changed the ability of fiction writers to research, and raised the degree of research expected of them;
  • It doesn't hinder my writing one bit that I can't write Harry Potter fanfic; however
  • I'm utterly dependent on the existence of high quality fiction and high quality theory books to learn how to write high quality fiction; most are heavily copyrighted, and therefore their price of access represents some barrier to entry;
  • I pump out way more 'creative commons' words than copyright-controlled words in the course of my writing -- apparently because I believe they somehow help my writing;
  • The traditional social instrument for lowering the cost of access to copyright material was the public library, but I can't remember the last time I went there; however
  • I'm always taking trips to commercial video libraries to hunt down ways that script-writers attack certain material;
  • Social effects seem to constantly erode stringent copyright anyway. Consider the way that oral myth and parody co-opt proprietary designs like 'The Terminator' or 'The Stepford Wives'; and finally
  • I seem to be getting a fair whack of my continuing education in classical literature from Project Gutenberg etc... these days. Apparently, copyrighted material becomes creative commons over time anyway - but only if it's in print and not audio or video.
 
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Dawnstorm

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Actually, I think, what we're relying on for inspiration isn't very relevant to the discussion, mostly because copyrighted material can be free and easily accessed (as Polenth pointed out), whether it has a "creative commons" license or not. Also, since "Creative Commons" is comparatively young, these sort of licenses will be rarer, so you'd have to know about the distribution within all published material and compare ratios rather than absolute numbers. The problem, once you get rid of the capital letters, is: what counts as "creative commons"? Jerry Cornelius stories, because - although the character has been created by Mike Moorcock - there are anthologies, comics etc. by other authors ("The Nature of the Catastrophy")? Shared world stories (such as Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover)?

It's easier to look at the effect standard copyright law has and wonder how a creative commons licence could help with the situation:

Take for example, the free webcomic Girl Genius. Under fun stuff, there's a link "communities", and if you follow the link you'll arrive at a link to a site of fan fiction, called "fanconstructs". Here's what they say about that site:

the Foglios said:
the double-secret LJ of GG fanfic. We aren't allowed to look at this one. IT IS FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE! Seriously, our attorney doesn't want us reading fanfic, at least, not until we're finished writing Girl Genius stories ourselves. He's a smart man, we obey. On the other hand, there's nothing to stop YOU from reading it! DABBLE IN THINGS THE FOGLIOS WERE NOT MEANT TO KNOW! MWAHAHAHA!

So:

1. They allow fanfiction to be made public
2. They encourage fanfiction by linking to it
3. They don't read the fanfiction, because their attorney told them not to.

If the fanfiction site had a creative commons licence that allowed the passing on and modification of content, I suspect that (3.) would be irrelevant. And, who knows, they might have liked to incorporate one or the other clever fan idea? And the fan in question might have felt so proud to be chosen by the makers... But, as it is, copyright issues can turn ugly. Fans might claim that the Foglios stole content from them, and the only way of proving this is by not reading ("at least until they're finished writing those stories themselves").

Notice that the writers might want to read fanfiction, and the fans might want to know what the writers think about their ideas, but out of legal considerations this is not going to happen.

Similarly:

It doesn't hinder my writing one bit that I can't write Harry Potter fanfic

No, but it would if that's what you wanted to write. But that's not the argument as I understand it. Your creativity isn't at issue so much as "Harry Potter" as social process:

If "Harry Potter" were a creative commons license that allowed the passing on of a modified original, people who see good and bad in the series could iron out a couple of "flaws" and bring out their own version of it. Rowling could disagree, but see a few good points, incorporate them etc.

But, see, even if you thought that a creative commons licence with maximum freedom (what used to be called "public domain") might improve your book (by other people's input), you might be unwilling to choose it since you might place your "ownership" of the text over such considerations - for emotional or monetary reasons.

It's all terribly complex and confusing. How many copyright violations go to court? Who asks whom to take what down? What consitutes "fair use"? Where would academia be if the peers couldn't quote each other in detail (I remember a book by Lewis Coser that's basically an extended commentary and systematication of an earlier article by Georg Simmel - the article, in an English translation, is quoted in full - I don't know who did the translation.)

There are plenty of questions: Do I have to name you when passing on your stuff? Can I modify it? Can I copyright my modifications with a different license than the core content? Can I make money from the passing on? Can I make money off my modifications...

Could, perhaps, the idea behind the game be that "intellectual property" frames ideas as immutable, proprietory things, discouraging you from tinkering with them (at least not in public)? Thinking...
 

Bartholomew

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The theory seems to be that a "passive consumer" (as the game says) could never create an idea. Which is absurd.

I've had people use my flute music (all creative commons) in remixes. It sounded weird and out of place. Maybe other people have had better experiences.
 

Mac H.

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That interpretation seems simply nonsense. Since copyright doesn't cover ideas AT ALL, then how can 'the copyright monster' suck ideas away?

OK - the Harry Potter books are copyright. Does that mean that it failed to give anyone ideas?

Of course not. Not only that, but it means that people must become CREATIVE if they want to express those ideas, since the only way they can't express those ideas is as a copy.

Thus, fundamentally, the copyright has help create more diverse expressions. If it wasn't for copyright, then many of those ideas would have been expressed as straight fan-fic copies.

Mac
 

Ruv Draba

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That interpretation seems simply nonsense. Since copyright doesn't cover ideas AT ALL, then how can 'the copyright monster' suck ideas away?
Copyright law distinguishes ideas from their expression -- but in practice, when ideas are complex and it takes great effort to understand and express them, copyright can ensure that certain works are seen as authoritative and prime sources. For instance, there are many blogs (e.g. Robert L Ferrier's) that recount Jack Bickham's writing advice in Scene and Structure, but for cohesive, concise and incisive understanding of how scenes work, many writers will recommend Bickham as a primary and superior source. I certainly appreciate Ferrier's gloss of the material, but when I have a knotty scene problem, I'm more likely to return to Bickham to help me resolve it.

I don't accept Pedercini's thesis either, but I believe that there is some connection between access to ideas and access to their expression. I also feel intuitively that there's some connection between copyright and quality -- though I'm having trouble finding or expressing it.

The original justification for patents offices and copyright was to stimulate innovation (especially expensive innovation) by ensuring that people who invest a lot of time in a high quality concept have some assurance of seeing reward for that investment. Perhaps a counter-argument to Pedercini is that abolition of copyright discourages big labours of love and vision, in favour of low-quality, low-cost short term creative opportunism.

Perhaps a counter-argument though, is that when creation mainly produces capital-intensive but low quality work (as some big-budget movies, or mass-marketed music might be said to be), while high quality works are obstructed from distribution, the copyright system is somehow failing. But that begs the questions: (i) what's the evidence of quality, (ii) is it copyright, or distribution that's the issue?
 
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Bartholomew

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But that begs the questions: (i) what's the evidence of quality, (ii) is it copyright, or distribution that's the issue?

I don't think it's either. I think it's because, especially in the entertainment industry, the people who control distribution only care about the bottom line and what colored numbers are beneath it. The Lord of the Rings movies did good, so other people who wanted a piece of the action decided to produce their own movies based on fantasy books.

This didn't really hurt anyone, but it killed a lot of potential space for other, better screenplays. So we got movie versions of the Golden Compass and Harry Potter, which were OK. And then we got stinkbombs like the movie version of The Spiderwick Chronicles.

The same thing happened to superhero movies.

Originally equates directly with risk, in the mind of someone who doesn't know what they're looking at in the entertainment industry. Which means we'll see a thousand cheap knock offs for every good film, book, or video game on the market.
 
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