I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately debating the merits of FOSS, Creative Commons and Open Access. There are some perspectives I agree with, and others I disagree with. But all of them have given me pause to consider my own position. Towards a Standard of Freedom: Creative Commons and the Free Software Movement is an article which has done just that -

For whatever reasons, 3/4 of CC-licensed works prohibit commercial use [4]. Lessig provided licenses and he hoped most creators’ conservatism and fears would not get the better of them. Apparently, they did; artistic works under these licenses are less accessible to a large number of creators.

When I first read the CC licenses a couple of years ago, I read ‘commercial’ and took it to mean large corporations. I did not until now consider the potential use of work by independent artists who may wish to live from their art. And how is commercial defined? If I receive a grant to write, or a discount on conference registration if I submit a paper, is that not also, technically, commercial? Further, it is also limiting that I have selected the ’share-alike’ clause. For now, I’m not going to change my license selection, but when I create new works in different formats or spaces (ie, outside of the blog or Flickr) I will consider my choices more carefully instead of selecting clauses because they’re the ones I’ve always chosen. Worth reading also is the list of full rights that all of the CC licenses embody.

I am still strongly in favour of the CC licenses, but I am pleased that more people are engaging with the underlying issues of ownership and what Lessig terms the ‘permission-based culture’. Remembering that CC is just the beginning is important.