Exploring the Creative Commons
Since I joined this forum I've been posting about independant canadian artist and lamenting that we don't know our local culture very well.
I decided to formalize this effort a bit and have started up a music podcast featuring artists from my area.
Starting this podcast and the thoughts I was left with after the heated Art's Sake: Wherefore Art Thou? thread prompted me to take some time to see what was happening in the creative commons. I'm not sure there has been much discussion here about the interesting cultural changes taking place as the music industry crumbles.
A few questions:
What do you think of the Creative Commons licenses?
Would you consider using such a licesnce on a work you create?
Is the vision of:
universal access to research, education, full participation in culture, and driving a new era of development, growth, and productivity.
just idealistic, unrealistic, beyond the power of a simple change in finding royalty free music/art/books or something such a license might actually encourage?
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
Written by Guthrie in the late 1930s on a songbook distributed to listeners of his L.A. radio show "Woody and Lefty Lou" who wanted the words to his recordings.
Would you consider using such a licesnce on a work you create?
It's on every filthy limerick I write. ;)
Actually, I think a CC license is a good thing, though I kind of suspect the decision to go with CC licensing begins with the question "could I sell this for money? No?..."
Actually, I think a CC license is a good thing, though I kind of suspect the decision to go with CC licensing begins with the question "could I sell this for money? No?..."
Well, how about I put it another way. If you could make money on it(CC licensing doesn't prevent you from doing so), would you consider still making your work free for non-comercial purposes?
I think musicians are asking themselves where am I going to make money. From album sales, live shows, royalties from radio/film/tv?
Well, how about I put it another way. If you could make money on it(CC licensing doesn't prevent you from doing so), would you consider still making your work free for non-comercial purposes?
There's a lot of conjecture here, because I don't actually create words or music that could conceivably be saleable, but if I did, I think I'd probably be asking myself whether, by retaining a traditional exclusive copyright to my work, I could make "significant" money. If yes, I'd probably be tempted, to be honest.
If no, then I think I'd probably prefer the CC license and get some attribution. Fame, if not fortune. :)
There's a lot of conjecture here, because I don't actually create words or music that could conceivably be saleable,
May I ask why you don't? I mean you seem to actively participate in this forum. It would seem to me that it's very conceivable that you can re-direct some of that writing energy into producing saleable work.
Lot's of people have written lot's of stuff here on babble for free. All these words are presumably owned by their respective authors. I'd be curious to know how many babblers would publish their posts under the Creative Commons if such an option was readily available.
The only way I could think of to simply designate all my posts under a creative license was to change my status.
I herby release all words I've posted on this site into the commons. So you're free to go ahead and yodel them.
Lot's of people have written lot's of stuff here on babble for free. All these words are presumably owned by their respective authors. I'd be curious to know how many babblers would publish their posts under the Creative Commons if such an option was readily available.
It would be an interesting add-on for the forum software. Make your post and select your preferred copyright model. Babble could even set one of the CC options to be the default, so that participants could still choose a restrictive copyright, but they'd need to opt out of CC, rather than opt in. I would certainly choose a CC model for my babble posts, in that case. I'm openly posting what I post anyway, so one could assume that I'm not trying to jealously guard my beautiful, beautiful words.
It would be an interesting add-on for the forum software.
I agree.
The pirate party speaks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7u-k8sToSvc
I used to have all my stuff open source but I changed to creative commons. Later I changed to creative commons "allowing commercial use". (Ordinary creative commons lisences do not). I have the pulser pump, pulser pump nano, nano airlift pump, the bio fueled pump, and in solar there is the dual dish tracking solar reflector and the solar design t-square and the dripper trackers. I though putting it creative commons might spur people to try the things but I don't think it made any differnce. People on windowfarms have adapted the dripper trackers for their hydroponics systems, and have done some work with the biofueled pump.
They are GREAT! I have a couple of really good friends in the solar cooking community but in general the community seems to get physically ill at the thought of new ideas.
The nano airlift pump actually came out of a comment by a windowfarmer on one of my videos! The funny thing is that ordinary people diy ing in their own time have been very helpful but organizations and engineers and scientists have been downright nasty at times. When I ask, "why will you not research this?" they say that it is too inefficient. When I ask "how do you know if you havn't tested it?" they totally freak out. People are really strange! Organizations just do not like outsiders.
Many people on babble will say, "there is Brian spouting off again" and switch off. And that is one problem with human thought. If your brain tells you that i am a fuckwit, it also turns off the "rational thought" subroutine (and doesn't tell you that it has turned it off!). I have won a few little prizes on the net, and this year I got nominated for the Ars next idea grant for the pulser pump. $7000 euro grant. (I don't expect to win but it does show that credibility is growing). (This is the thing that the armchair experts who have not tested it say is too inefficient). I wonder why I got nominated (and approved by a university review group) to enter an international competition?
A freaky thing is that with creative commons designs there is no independent review prossess in place. I finally thought through the dual dish solar thing just over a year ago and published it. I thought "holy shit, this is so awesome and I almost missed it!". A few people did work to validate the theory and help get the sizes right but the solar cooking "community" was extremely luke warm about it. First comment "your math is wrong!". So I found an astronomer who said he uses exactly the same technique to video the sun and the guy backed off. (But it was too new for anyone to attempt!).
Another freaky thing is that there is a French group, a team of engineering students who can actually build stuff (I cannot make the things I dream up) and I can see their design evolving into what I came up with! They are half way there but seem unable to use my input! Their design is http://solarcooking.wikia.com/wiki/Dolios_Solar_Cooker. It takes just 2 more steps and their thing becomes identical to mine! Easier to use and easier to automate too!
I do not know what is motivating the refusal to acknowlege or to take advice. So sorry for the bla bla. I think creative commons is useful because it saves ideas from death in the dark (Gollom the inventer hiding his precious idea as he works on it) but it needs an infrastructure to nurture ideas and get them into use faster. Thanks Brian
I think creative commons is useful because it saves ideas from death in the dark (Gollom the inventer hiding his precious idea as he works on it) but it needs an infrastructure to nurture ideas and get them into use faster.
I think that's true. What I've found with music is that the organization and structure of CC music sites has improved dramatically in the last few years. It's become much easier for people to share and find sounds and songs and has encouraged virtual communities to grow around creating free music. I could see similar digital infastructure helping inventors as well.
I'd imagine building your designs might require a committment of time and money beyond reach for the average person. I'd imagine that make groups investing in this kind of thing doubly concerned about using a CC. Though allowing commercial use should alleviate some of those concerns.
I put together the Honey Bee Murder Mystery game using all CC photos from flickr. The fact that I could search a large volume of specifically licensed work made it reasonably easy to make something of a high quality. I just had to find the photos I thought were good amoungst all the others.
What I'm finding while making my music podcast is that most people I contact are willing to let me play music. But because they haven't thought to openly attach such permissions to their work when they post it online there is all the extra work of me emailing them and them having to respond.
Mick Ebeling: The invention that unlocked a locked-in artist
Another highly recommended CC track: http://ccmixter.org/files/Vidian/31850
Just discovered no media kings.
...
I try a lot of things simply because I realize I can do them. Movies were a lot like that — in 2000, a pal had a camera, another pal let me edit on his computer, and pow, I made a movie. Again, it wasn’t very good, and probably people who enjoyed my books were thrown off by the lack of polish. But it was good enough that I met a bunch of people as a result and got enough juice to make another one. To me it was funny that I was making vids, mixing it up with “real” vid makers, many of whom had no idea I also wrote books. Doing things I’m not supposed to do gives me a charge while it drains others, which explains why I go against the grain a fair bit.
While they weren’t good, I felt they were interesting. In my hierarchy, “interesting” trumps “good” every time. The world has an excess of quality, polished cultural product. A good friend (who I met through making zines, of course) opened me up to the world of the crappy-yet-fascinating, and it has been my creative compass ever since."
I watched "infest Wisely" last night. It's available to stream or downloand for free. The work it very much story driven. It's a well written sci-fi story that cuts into the meat of many current social issues. It's a multi-part feature film with each section being directed by someone different. This kind of collaboration seems to have meant many different talents were able to contribute a wider array of resources and specialities than any one individual could have without having to spend much more money. The result is very impressive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tef0mSGE464 is an interview with Daniel Connell who is also working on a solar device.I think he explains the lonlyness of someone who is driven to do this stuff very well. "It isn't the best approach, it is the only approach"
He has more get up and go than me and he is just plowing into it. His is an open source project, a tracking parabolic trough. He has been working on it for a few years.
My project is coming along slowly. I am up to my eyes in work so not much time for it. His facebook page and a solarflower group on facebook are the links
solarflower.org@groups.facebook.com
Daniel ConnellThanks for the links Brian.
CC probably does get more immediate results when a wider segment of the population is able to make use of the material.
51 days later the Honeybee game has received 91 facebook likes, 80 downloads from the internet archive, 985 Unique Views on my web site, and indication that it is being used in virginia, california and spain.
I'd consider that fairly successful despite the fact that the vast majority of people are simply viewing the projectt rather than downloading and making active use of it.
Perhaps you should put something about it on instructables.com and sneak in honeybee in the tags, (instructables was my greatest bee success). (Many people do not know anything at all about solitary bees.) My cob bee blocks are getting more bees than last year as far as I can tell even though it is the crappiest year ever. You could put a link to your bee stuff on my solitary bee thingy on instructables. There is also on flickr a group that make and take pictures of solitary bee housing. Worth getting your toe in there too.
I think it is necessary for people to secure funding for their projects. (I never got any for anything). I am not eligable for kickstarter, for instance. I always had it in mind that hippy flower children in eco villages or keen enviro students would figure out that the science and physics is correct and then take over the tracking solar accumulator, and clam solar projects and devellop and "prove" them and showcase them to the people who matter. I have a job and very little time off and zero funding so it is bluddy slow. And I am one guy with a pretty narrow subset of skills, so I cannot showcase a really good version of the ideas simply because I cannot make them as well as others could. (Most of the more viewed open source stuff is done by a team with diverse skills, so they have their sheet metal worker, their computer guy, their stepper motor guy and computer and movie guy). For that you need Money!
Thanks for the links Brian.
CC probably does get more immediate results when a wider segment of the population is able to make use of the material.
51 days later the Honeybee game has received 91 facebook likes, 80 downloads from the internet archive, 985 Unique Views on my web site, and indication that it is being used in virginia, california and spain.
I'd consider that fairly successful despite the fact that the vast majority of people are simply viewing the projectt rather than downloading and making active use of it.
Vieux Farka Touré released some tracks from one of his songs into the creative commons. I used it to create this. I never would have been able to do this without the CC license. I had fun and am happy with the it and it's something others can build upon or change if it doesn't exactly meet their aesthetic prefrences....in fact a few people have already made their own versions.