Five years ago today things changed online in the copyfight. Frustration with the increasingly hostile environment surrounding intellectual property and a fundamental shift in copyright law in the United States, a brilliant and positive initiative called Creative Commons launched. It shifted things around by not asking “how can I stop people from stealing things?,” but by asking “how I can I share what I make and work with others?” With a set of licenses that were legal as well human and machine readable, an amazing amount of creativity and collaboration became possible.
This blog had started a few months before the launch in December of 2002 and I licensed all my blog posts from that point on. Now I have 331 posts that can be shared and remixed as long as it’s noncommercial and I’ve given credit. All of my 6,547 public photos on Flickr have the same license. The 10 episodes of the Bad Metaphor podcast are also licensed and everything that I create and put online will be licensed in a similar way.
It’s been a positive and encouraging experience to use the licenses as I’ve been able to meet and work with people from all over the world because of the project. The more that you give and share, the more you get back.
Last year I was able to help with the cc:365 project where we were able to highlight the amazing range of great music that is licensed. I was also able to meet the very cool Grant Robertson who moved to the city where I work last year as well. There are lots of other people that I’ve met and corresponded with thanks to sharing and I will encourage others to share their work and license it whenever possible.
While the Creative Commons project originated in the United States as a result of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, now in Canada we very probably will be facing similar legislation. The difference now is that we have had five years of Creative Commons and Creative Commons Canada as well as Online Rights Canada even the Canadian Music Creators Coalition to help us fight for a more progressive and reasonable copyright law. In quite a remarkable turn of events (thanks to letters, comments and questions from the public) the proposed legislation wasn’t introduced in this session of parliament and it has been delayed until some time in the new year. Hopefully there will be real consultation with all of those create and use intellectual property and we find a better way to share and protect what we create. It’s a fitting and happy day as we celebrate 5 years of Creative Commons and hope for the future of copyright law in Canada. Cheers!
