Learning with the Fang

This old chestnut does the rounds every year or so - Stephen Downes and I appear to have views at opposite ends of the spectrum. This last round has given me fresh insight and an idea for a method to help decide when to use which creative commons ‘open license’ scheme.Stephen argues that cc:by-nc-sa *0 is the most effective license scheme for ensuring open access to free content. I argue that cc:by is more open.

Stephen’s recent post - Another Kick at the ‘Free Content’ Cat sheds some very helpful light on the situation for me. The example ‘OOPS - community-based project, where the materials are placed into a wiki and are translated by a community of volunteers‘ - is used to draw the conclusion ‘The end result is, if content is licensed under ‘CC-BY-SA’, the result is inevitably that the majority of people in the world must pay for access to that content. And that is not what I call ‘free’. YEP - I get that - adding the NC restriction prevents commercial activity that could subsequently limit the freedom of that content.

But here’s the thing: this argument becomes important for efforts large enough to attract the type of commercial attention that might impose future restrictions - for example, a successful open source project like Linux or Moodle, the OOPS translation effort or a famous blog like slashdot or oldaily. As Clay Shirky explains in his recent book ‘here comes everybody’, these projects need take steps to prevent commercially driven harm - generally via mechanisms like the GNU license *1 (make sure you read the story about the spanish language version of wikipedia). As an earlier chapter of the same book explains *2 ‘Fame Happens’ - fame is a forced move that takes us from a conversational to a broadcast environment. These ’success stories’ are rather rare and belong to the ’short head’ of a power curve distribution:

But as for me: I am a citizen of the long tail and proud of it. Like most open source projects and most blogs the most frequent response to my work is none. From time to time I will write a post that attracts a comment or two, and I have plenty of time to respond to each and every one. This is not a problem - it is something I enjoy because I can have real conversations with like minded people. This is the power (or jewel) of the long tail - I am frequently amazed by the rich and surprising connections that develop when I put my stuff ‘out there’ (serendipity).

What I do crave is recognition (not fame). The most profound recognition I have experienced is when someone mashes up or remixes my work. Like this, this, this, this or this. The biggest risk to me is that nobody will ever find my remixable digital work - or if they do that they might not have confidence to use it (ie that they might feel they need to ask permission first).

This is why I license my work cc:by.

Try playing with the advanced search of flickr or google. Notice the checkboxes in the ‘creative commons’ section. Think about which licenses turn up the most results. Only public domain (cc:0) trumps cc:by.

Oh wait, I’ve just shot my own argument in the foot - the most open creative commons license scheme is not cc:by-nc-sa or cc:by but cc:0 (public domain). In fact, it was a podcast by Stephen Downes in which I learned the principle of ‘free flowing digital content through systems’ particularly automated things built on technologies like RSS. At the time I was just learning to use things like RSS readers and early versions of tools like yahoo pipes. Any content ‘infected’ by DRM technology or feed requiring username or password would break the free flow. Any license restriction could also break that flow. I remember hearing Stephen say something like ‘you need to put your content out there and forget about trying to control what happens to it after’. And the ‘evidence that your work is good is that they use it’. As a result I convinced myself to never put out a partial RSS feed of any of my work and to license my work as openly as possible. I wasn’t aware of cc:0 at the time (and a quick check shows it is new and not ready for use outside the USA). I also hope that software will evolve to automate the generation of the attribution chain as complex multi-generational remixes get created  - I fear using public domain might prevent that.

Having slept on a draft of this post, I’m not happy with where my head is at. Just when I thought I had find a way to resolve the two conflicting views in my mind, THIS POST turns up in my aggregator with the killer sentence:

Which means we need to be careful about how we grant access to distributors of such content - if we keep it reserved for a certain elite (as has been the case with iTunes) then we are granting a source of power that will eventually be abused.

HMMM - sorry cat, looks like more kicks required.

I have learned something new and valuable this time around, but I don’t feel I have it completely sussed. Would love to chat about this on Skype and put it out as a podcast.

*0 - Creative Commons Licenses (overview)

*1 - Shirky, Here Comes Everybody p273-274. ‘GNU license for linux’
*2 - Shirky, Here Comes Everybody p93-95. ‘fame is a forced move’ - ‘conversational tools and broadcast tools’

Fang - Mike Seyfang

technorati tags:seyfang, mikeseyfang

THIS 8 minute video of a demo from REMIX08 is the best thing I have seen emerge from that event since Mark Pesce’s Keynote.

A quick and not too slick look at the back end of Microsoft’s ‘Deep Zoom’ technology in silverlight.

Much more interesting and informative than the ‘Hard Rock Cafe’ example crammed into the tortuously long video from Las Vegas. Goes some way to answering my question posed during the event ‘where is the Aussie deep zoom content’? (If you know of any pls leave pointers here).

It shows how the grassroots community can always come up with something more valuable, less shiny and more credible than the big corporate. Hat tip to the hierarchy subverters who allowed this to happen (ceiling cat would be pleased). - OK a little birdy told me that Delicate Genius actually works for Microsoft so I must eat some humble pie and admit that I have no clue! (I do however enjoy the less perfect, more authentic tone of this short video over all the politically correct, glossy polished turds that usually emanate from big budget shows like MIX08 in Vegas).

Fang - Mike Seyfang