creative commons through the looking glass

A somewhat throw-away comment on Lawrence Lessig blog yesterday made me start to wonder if Creative Commons is really a community. Not in a negative way. Read on and you'll get what I mean.

Lessig was commenting on Pomona College Associate Professor of English and Media Studies Kathleen Fitzpatrick's positive review of his new book Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy on the Barnes & Noble site, and how that had made his day a lot better than Spencer E Ante's scathing and uninteresting review on the BusinessWeek site had.


International for the launch of Creative Commons Hong Kong he recounted how he had added a Flickr image of the book's cover to the entry about Ante's review to "distract from the Spencer review." He went on to say:

I didn't know the photographer, and certainly didn't know where she was from. I'm not even quite sure how I even came across the image. But after my talk here in Hong Kong, she came up to me. She had seen the image on my blog.

He called this the "most amazing fact of the day" and it is!

Relationships are developed through social interactions. Such interactions include some form of exchange whether this takes the form of time spent together, exchanging actual goods (such as the proverbial cup of sugar borrowed), exchanging information, etc. [2]

For Creative Commons, the licensing and marking of content as having "some rights reserved" is the mechanism through which sharing takes place. But unlike real-world communities, "...where the “coin of the realm” for relationship building often includes the ritual sharing or exchange of [physical]“things”" [3], "things" within the Creative Commons community are not as directly shared. For example, if I ask my neighbour for the proverbial cup of sugar (and they agree to 'share' their sugar supply with me) I am given directly, by them, a cup of sugar. Compare this to the experience of sharing using Creative Commons. I make my photos available on Flickr under an Attribution licence. Rather than my neighbour coming over to my place to request my images, I have preempted the request (some might argue prematurely and superficially since I do not know if anyone actually wants them) and already granted my neighbour and everyone else permission. Often the experience of sharing using CC doesn't involve any direct interaction between the parties sharing.

This is compounded further by the fact that Creative Commons, unlike other communities online, lacks direct membership (although the ccNetwork may change that over time). Unlike social networks which, like geographic communities, have a boundary (ie you must log in to be part of the community), Creative Commons is not restricted to any one platform, nor for that matter to just the virtual environment. For the real-world and virtual 'gated communities' "some people belong, others do not," as University of North Carolina at Greensboro academics Julia Hersberge, Kevin Rioux and Ray Cruitt note. "Isolation and rejection can be the negative outcome of boundary setting."

I know that one of the philosophical underpinnings of Creative Commons and other Open Content Licensing models is to not discriminate, which is why they are available to anyone. But for members of the Creative Commons community the real possibility of feeling alone and isolated within the community can be strong. With no central 'community hub' and a very dispersed community it can be difficult to be recognised as being part of the community at all.

To me, it is because of this that Creative Commons has such a vibrant set of subcommunities; CC users on Flickr, Deviant Art, ccMixter, educators in support of Open Educational Resources, meet up (at official CC events, events run by other organisations and unofficially) and a number of others. To me, the fact that through Creative Commons Lessig and laihiu were not just able to share content with each other, but that indirectly that formed into a direct relational bond to one another. Without CC it is unlikely they would have (Lessig probably would not have been in Hong Kong, laihiu probably would not have known who Lessig was to see him speak even if he were in Hong Kong) even though they presumably the share some common interests. An aspect of Creative Commons which is increasingly interesting to me is the way in which relationships are fostered through it and by it. Does anyone have an annecdote similar to this? Has anyone made any lasting relationships through their decision to share using Creative Commons?

The short CC licensed video was directed by renowned filmmaker Jesse Dylan (who did Barack Obama Yes We Can campaign video which won an Emmy). A pile of CC people talk about sharing and the commons, peppered with a bunch of Flickr photos and all set to "17 Ghosts II” and “21 Ghosts III” from Nine Inch Nails' album Ghosts I-IV.

Show your support!  There's a whole bunch of ways to give. Make a donation, it'll get you a place on campaign honour roll and on the new ccNetwork. There's also a range of other goodies that come depending on how much you donate. Or buy something from the CC store.

Tell us all why you CC with a submission to the call for videos. Wear a campaign badge or the donation widget on your website or blog with pride. And most of all, help spread the word!

If you can't make a direct financial contribution, you could always just watch some of the Creative Commons videos. They are all on Revver so each time they are watched they generate ad revenue, some of which goes back to CC.


 3.0 United States licence. Full licence information and attributions for works featured in the film are available on the A Shared Culture page.

The short CC licensed video was directed by renowned filmmaker Jesse Dylan (who did Barack Obama Yes We Can campaign video which won an Emmy). A pile of CC people talk about sharing and the commons, peppered with a bunch of Flickr photos and all set to "17 Ghosts II” and “21 Ghosts III” from Nine Inch Nails' album Ghosts I-IV.

Show your support!  There's a whole bunch of ways to give. Make a donation, it'll get you a place on campaign honour roll and on the new ccNetwork. There's also a range of other goodies that come depending on how much you donate. Or buy something from the CC store.

Tell us all why you CC with a submission to the call for videos. Wear a campaign badge or the donation widget on your website or blog with pride. And most of all, help spread the word!

If you can't make a direct financial contribution, you could always just watch some of the Creative Commons videos. They are all on Revver so each time they are watched they generate ad revenue, some of which goes back to CC.

Image this: it's 10 in the morning and you have a alcoholic ginger beer in one hand, a program that is so jam-packed it reads like a phonebook and a head so full of ideas and information you couldn't possibly remember it all. Welcome to that wondrous, debauturous multi-festival event This Is Not Art!

Consisting of four arts festivals/events, it's arguably australia's biggest and best independent arts festival. If you're into experimental electronic arts Electrofringe is for you. Musos please head to Sound Summit. And get your text on with the National Young Writers' Festival or Critical Animals postgraduate conference. But don't take my word for it, they say "It's the five days of the year where you get to share your ideas, passions and saliva with like-minded crew from all over australia."

So I'm heading down on one of the two flights from Brisbane to Newcastle tomorrow, accompanied by the lovely Amy Barker, Project Manager of Remix My Lit, to talk some talk with some of australia's leading independent artists, performers, musicians, thinkers and ratbags. Here's where I'll be:

Friday 3 October 2008

CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSING (part of Electrofringe)

ABC Pool Producer, John Jacobs takes you though a clear and detailed explanation of Creative Commons licensing from a producers point of view.

Speakers: John Jacobs, Producer, ABC Pool, Radio National, Australian Broadcasting Corporation; and Elliott Bledsoe, Project Officer, Creative Commons Australia
Cost: Free event

LICENCE TO ILL: LEGALITIES, LICENSING, IMPLICATIONS AND IMPLEMENTATIONS! (part of Sound Summit)

Key representatives from APRA, the PPCA and Creative Commons join artists and industry to discuss the latest on artist copyright, licensing, downloading and legislation. In particular, addressing the impact and implications for local music communities.

Facilitators: Ronan Sharkey, Hack/JTV, Triple J, ABC
Speakers: Brett Cottle, CEO, Australasian Performing Right Association; David Vodicka, Principal, Media Arts Lawyers; Elliott Bledsoe, Project Officer, Creative Commons Australia; Lynne Small, Manager of Finance, Operations; Administration, Phonographic Performance Company of Australia
Cost: Free

BEYOND READ/WRITE: A LITERATURE REMIX MASTERCLASS (part of the National Young Writers Festival)

Read/Write has always been a dichotomy in literature. The author on one side, reader on the other, both toiling away in solitude. But is there a more collaborative space for literature? Can work be read & write? Creative Commons Australia invites you to cut, paste, shuffle & republish in this remixable literature masterclass.

Speakers: Amy Barker, Project Manager, Remix My Lit; Elliott Bledsoe, Project Officer, Creative Commons Australia
Cost: Free

Saturday 4 October 2008

YOUR CREATIVITY AND SUCCESS: NEW BUSINESS MODELS UNDER THE MICROSCOPE (part of Sound Summit)

Technology did its part in democratising creativity an eon ago, but where has that led? Experts & artists look at bottom up approaches to making music viable: How is active consumption, participation forcing major industry players out of the picture? Is this DIY or die, version 2.0?

Facilitator: Stuart Buchanen, Mixed Industries
Speakers: Beatrice Jetto, PhD student, Department of Media, Macquarie University; Evan Kaldor, Fbi Radio; Alex Crowfoot, Ollo; and Anna John, Cloth Ear
Cost: Free

If you see me around say hello ^_^