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Home
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. On Creative Commons
 25-05-2009
I was brought up to believe that stealing someone’s stuff was a bad thing. I learnt the hard way. At the age of 7 and with some long forgotten accomplices, I dabbled with the notion of ‘free’ and ‘common’ goods at McKenzies’ the department store in Thames. Having neglected to compensate the shop owners for the chocolates I’d walked off with I recall being frog marched down Pollen St by my mother to the above-mentioned establishment to hand back the loot and throw myself at the mercy of the shopkeeper. Fortunately the shopkeeper was in a benevolent mood (in comparison with my parents who were feeling somewhat less magnanimous) and I was freed back into my community with some stern words and learning’s to digest. It set me on my path in life with a clear understanding that you cannot just help yourself to someone else’s stuff.
Push the clock forward 36 years and the things that held true in 1972 may well be under threat in the brave new world of Web 2.0. In this realm you can help yourself to someone else’s stuff, in fact it seems pretty well mandatory. Grand creations in Web 2.0 such at BitTorrent and other peer-to-peer file sharing has created entire marketplaces for stolen content with 10’s of millions of subscribers. And what’s even better is, if you steal it on the web, it’s not really stealing. No one really gets hurt when you steal online. And anyway, it’s not like those film companies and record companies are short of a buck. And lets’ face it; anyone who is trying to make me pay for stuff on the web is getting in the way of the spirit of Web 2.0. It’s about sharing (the new euphemism for theft) and collaboration and creativity. If people would just set their content free then everything would be fine. Strange times we live in.
So what does all this have to do with Creative Commons you ask? Creative Commons licensing was developed to make it easy for people to share and copy and manipulate each others creations for free. It is born out of the web and has matured into a very useful tool for the ‘freebee-ists’ that inhabit the Web 2.0 headspace. There are multiple licences that Creative Commons have available including some that offer forms of commercial use/protection. That’s all very nice but the real threat to our creative enterprise is the attitudes of those who think things should be free and behave as if they are free. Creative Commons doesn’t send a strong message to this growing horde that you are serious about protecting your content.
Obviously existing Copyright law is manifestly inadequate for Creative Commons to have evolved? Well NO. Copyright law seeks to balance the rights of creators to earn a living from their works against the need for public access to their work. Sounds inherently fair and reasonable, doesn’t it? Probably because it is. If ever the old cliché of ‘if it isn’t broken..’ had some resonance this would seem to be it. Every publisher and author who creates should have the right to earn a living from their works. This is even more pronounced in a market as small as New Zealand where the potential number of paying consumers is tiny. New Zealand’s copyright agency, CLL is an active member of an international group of Copyright groups who license and protect the legitimate rights of creators and publishers to ensure that they are fairly remunerated when their work is copied.
Last year we became aware of the Google Books Settlement. This settlement in my opinion is a victory for Copyright. It is a victory for Copyright because an organisation that is synonymous with Web 2.0 thought that it was powerful enough to flagrantly help itself to someone else’s stuff. You start to build a picture of the scale of the potential problem when the most visible web citizens on the planet have a tenuous respect for copyright.
There is a growing interest amongst New Zealand’s book publishers to ensure that their content plays its part in the digital domain. It’s an exciting time and our successful transition from the traditional media to the digital will be an important moment for not only our industry but also our customers and the vibrant cultural landscape that exists in this country that we have been instrumental in helping shape. Getting it wrong through lax Copyright protection has the potential to set us back irrevocably. Getting it wrong is not an option.
There is only one question that really needs answering in this entire debate. Do I want to create and publish in an environment where it is manifestly clear to my customers and audience in any media that I am the owner of the work and deserve to be rewarded for my industry.
I know I do.
For further reading on this subject I thoroughly recommend the following: Creative Commons - the fine print. It applies to the Art world but is totally as relevant to Book Publishers.
Source: First published BPANZ newsletter, Issue 104 May 2009
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