Creative Commies
Thanks to Gadget Lounge, I read Bill Gates’s stupid comments about advocates for intellectual property reform:
I’d say that of the world’s economies, there’s more that believe in intellectual property today than ever. There are fewer communists in the world today than there were. There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don’t think that those incentives should exist.
Anyone who followed the debate around the AUSFTA would know that support for IP reform does not a communist make. (If you want to go back over the arguments, Kim Weatherall’s archives are a great place to start.)
The backlash against the “sort of modern-day robber baron” has been quite entertaining. The phrase “Creative Commies” — a play on Creative Commons — sparked a series of smart-arsed culture jams.
Unfortunately, these images all use the Copyleft symbol, which represents a significant proportion of the IP reform movement, but by no means the whole thing. Creative Commons licenses (which can include copyleft) are far more widely used, especially among bloggers.
So if you want to join in this “Bill Gates is an ass” meme, here are some buttons you can use to link to your Creative Commons license.
Please host them on your own server, if possible.
[...] he number of bloggers, it may not even be the most widely used any more. And so he offers an alternative for bloggers, a Creative Commons Creative Commies logo. Corr says the meme [...]
Now this is fine if I’d like to donate my intellectual labour collectively, Rob. It’s quite an attractive icon, too.
I’d quite like to have a system of IP where I don’t allow myself to become alienated from my labour. As far as I understand it, the idea of copyleft releases ideas into the public domain where any other author can contribute to them, and little can help the original author but goodwill.
When I blog, I blog, and God help my ideas. When I write properly and professionally, for the moment, I’ll reserve all rights and not publish my ideas, until such a system arrives which allows me to release my ideas and not allow others to take advantage of them without proper acknowledgement.
Until then, all power to the soviets, workers, and authors.
Very nice indeed!
Whilst I agree that all large corporations take their intellectual property rather seriously, to the point of almost restricting a person’s ability to breathe on occasions, I still think it’s their right to do so. At the same time it’s not just dominant companies like Microsoft acting this way – remember when the owners of the Unix trademark tapped Apple on the shoulder for a breach of trademark, which isn’t considered ripping of computer code but still an infringement of IP.
As a general rule, when I add something I have made to my website I code it on the server-side (where possible) and claim a copyright for it. If the code can’t be seen then their can be no misunderstandings later on ay. What I don’t expect though is for people to knock off my images and photos without giving me a credit for it. It’d be nice if I was asked if I’d like to share and I’ve never said no but ignorance usually takes precendence and people usually just take what they want.
Schemes like Creative Commons are quite legitimate however Creative Commons doesn’t really go beyond what I, personally, am already prepared to offer to the Internet community even with a retention of all rights on whatever I publish.
When all is said and done though, the principles of Copyleft is hardly what I’d refer to as “reform”. The principles of Copyright and Copyleft have been around since men lived in caves.
I see the designer of the stickers hasn’t been given credit for his or her work…
You seem to have a misguided idea of what Creative Commons licenses (as opposed to copyleft) entail, Liam. They do not necessarily allow other people to profit from your work. In fact, the license I’m using specifically rejects commercial use of my work.
When my computer stops randomly crashing with IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL to messages then I’ll give him some support.
And no I will not use a Mac or any operating system created by a 16-year-old in his parent’s basement.
Creative Commies: more art than you can shake a sickle at
Following up on previous Boing Boing posts (1, 2 3, 4) about remarks by Bill Gates comparing free culture advocates to commies — a number of readers picked up the meme and riffed on their own. Here are a few of the many “creative commonist” propaga…
Thank you.
I see the designer of the stickers hasn’t been given credit for his or her work…
well that person is me. and you know what, i dont care. i know that it was based on my work. i dont sell my desktops (linked to from my copyleft page), i dont do anything but share them.
if someone wants to take what i have done and make it cooler/better/neater/more sellable (like the t-shirts then all the more power to them. the shirt guy has sold several hundred of them, probably made a few hundred bucks. do i really care? no. i didn’t have the initiative to make shirts, so i don’t deserve a cut of that money
some people like me just don’t care if people use our work.
now i’m sure if i was making something that i was selling or something more valuable, i’d be a little more protective, but still believe in creative commons over traditional copyright
and as for you adam:
And no I will not use a Mac or any operating system created by a 16-year-old in his parent’s basement.
why not use a mac? because you’ve got some long-standing hatred of a company willing to do something different? because you’re disillusioned about what will and will not run on it?
how about that 16 year old? why not use something he’s made. for that matter, i don’t think linux was 16 or in a basement when he wrote the first version of the linux kernel, and the people i know personally who manage open source projects and contribute to them are not 16 not living in basements, in fact, most of them have families and jobs that pay them to do what they love.
sounds like you’ve been reading too much slashdot
fwiw, i put one up on my page.
Nice buttons. I like the copyleft symbol better though, it’s easier to understand.
Oh, and Adam, you should buy a Mac. Or somehow convince Microsoft to make good products.
Putting this up on my site now: nice one.
Thanks guys.
(Btw, I linked to Ian’s work, which I assumed would be enough to show that I’d pinched the idea from him. But it’s nice to know he doesn’t mind, anyway.)
Creative commies
Like many others I was both outraged and amused at Bill Gates’ absurd comments about open source and communists. I’ve now updated my blog template to change the Creative Commons link to use one of Robert Carr’s nice buttons. Pass it on…….
Well, I do think that all this `copyleft’ (and the only CC license I find interesting is the By-SA, with a certain flexibility for NC in between under special circumstances) — all this `copyleft’ thing, I say, is quite commie, yes.
Not that I mind, because I think that I can describe myself as a commie too.
What oh so many people seem to forget is that communism is not necessarily authoritative. There is something called Libertarian Communism, where instead of forcing people to share and cooperate, they are encouraged and persuaded.
I believe this is what the Copyleft / Free Culture (or whatever) movement does, essentially. It does defend one of the essential communist mottos — from everyone according to their ability, to everyone according to their need.