2007.12.10
Not if but when
23.20.20 - Mark
I release almost all of my content (text, photos, videos) under some form of Creative Commons license or something in the same vein if the receiving party isn't familiar with Creative Commons. I do this for two main reasons. One is that I really like seeing people find uses for the things I create. The second is that I feel that current copyright law is better suited to protecting corporation than it is to protecting creators, all while screwing the general public. Creative Commons lets me allow people to expand on my creations while, at least in a legal sense, protecting the rights I really care about like proper attribution and prohibiting commercial uses.
Except... It doesn't seem to be respected. In the last 6 months, I've seen at least four instances where my stuff was used sans credit. One was honest mistake, but two should know better and the last infringement could be called commercial use (plus it was misattribution, not missing attribution). All of the infringements bug me, but at the same time I would have given the OK to credit-less use in the noncommercial stuff, and probably would have only required correct attribution for the commercial use.
I know I don't want to waste time and make myself into an asshole by putting archaic anti-copying code onto my site, and I don't want to plaster copyright notices all over the place but at the same time I want some sort of credit for the content I've created (which is only fair). Something to think about.
Link | 0 Comments | cc copyright creative commons infringement life thoughts
2006.10.21
A BSA the BSA would be proud of
00.46.19 - Mark
I'm going to preface this with the fact that I am a Scout. Eagle rank and I've spent three wonderful summers working at a nearby Boy Scout camp.
I'm also an avid computer user and proudly release works under creative commons because I feel that copyright law in this country and around the world is very horribly corrupted by groups like the MPAA, RIAA, and Business Software Alliance. I regularly use what thouse groups would consider "Piracy Tools" like bittorrent and other peer to peer networks.
The idea of the Boy Scouts of America being used to combat piracy by the MPAA and RIAA absolutely disgusts me.
On the local levels scouting is a wonderful thing. It teaches valuable life skills, helps youth find subjects and hobbies that can lead to careers, and in some areas does a better job of educating kids than public schools. Not to mention giving back to the community.
While I severly disagree with the national scouting organization on matters like allowing "gays" and atheists to participate in scouting I'll live with the fact that it is a private club (by some definitions at least). But allowing industry associations to exploit it for commercial gain is far beyond reason. What's next product endorsements in Salesmanship merit badge and partisan politics in Citizenship in the Nation?
Sometimes scouting actually deserves the bad reputation it has developed in today's culture.
Link | 0 Comments | BSA copyright MPAA scouting
2006.05.25
Small changes
19.57.59 - Mark
Google is a little annoyed with me for the way I was supposedly supporting click fraud and leading to inflation of advertising costs - I guess they haven't looked to see how much money this site is actually drawing from adsense so to appease the google advertising robot gods I had to change some stuff in the templates. Since I was in there mucking about I finally took the time to add a creative common's flag to the main text blog.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 License.
I've been pretty open about how I treat content on this site, not that there's probably that much that would be suitable for remixing. About the only limit I've placed on the content is the non-commercial use. It's happened (amazingly) and the only thing about commercial use is that I want to know where my content is. I suppose it also ties in to some of my current problems with high school university, and who gets to use and control student works.