creators fight back

Just thought you might like to know that I’m not the only weird creator who thinks the idea of copyright needs some help here. So I thought I’d share a few important links:

In Locus Magazine Cory Doctorow explains Why I Copyfight [Cory Doctorow licenses his books under Creative Commons.]

A blog called Techrisk (The vulnerable information society) Mathias Klang has published a list of books released under Creative Commons licensing cc books.

My brother Larry Russwurm’s blog post this week uses/reviews a creative commons licensed cartoon making software in Playing With Bitstrips.

From May 16th, 2000 Salon.com has an unedited transcript of Courtney Love’s speech to the Digital Hollywood online entertainment conference about the record industry Courtney Love does the math

And on her own website, you can read terrifically talented singer/songwriter Janis Ian‘s stunning article the THE INTERNET DEBACLE – AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW

But the best is from Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues Webpage. because Nina Paley’s explanation of why she had to use the music she did drives home precisely how the changes made to copyright law over the past decades actually impede the creation of art. Because most of us aren’t as brave as Nina Paley.

Most of us make the changes required by copyright law.

Real or imagined or feared, because we don’t have the time or energy or money to fight lawsuits or pay extortionate amounts of money to use the creative works of artists that should have been in the public domain. We just want to make art.

And that is bad for art, bad for culture. For all of us.

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acknowledgments:
Thanks to Adrian du Plessis for directing me to Janis Ian
Thanks to Jonathan Fritz for directing me to the Courtney Love piece