Creative Commons-- a wonderful project which is helping to bridge some of the copyright gaps in the digital age. I had not thought of putting a Creative Commons license on my blog; I assume that anything intentionally placed on the platter of the public can be seen, and, also, adopted, and I would hope that the borrower would credit the originator. In actuality, though, creative content is copyrighted by default. This gap is one we just mostly ignore (hello Retweets and Youtube and anything mashed), because it is an unspoken, adopted tenet of the 2.0 age that things, as publicly posted, will be subject to iteration. Legally, this doesn't fly. Yet, fundamentally, the Internet breeds reanimation. Would you upload the technical drawings to your potential billion-dollar invention without obtaining a patent? Well, no. That would be dumb. This is why companies have intranets as well as internets--to keep proprietary information private. The Internet is not a safe haven for fully-copyrighted material, really. On the upside, however, it is this open, public venue that has the greatest potential to breed creativity and advance the common sense. Ideas for ideas' sake are tremendous gifts; user-centric programs central to the Web 2.0 era may have the greatest potential to deliver this content and these opportunities.
I would consider adding Creative Commons licenses to those of my created works that are not intended for profit. In the milieu of archives, we purveyors of historical oddities owe it to our colleagues and our repositories to share ideas that will sustain (and hopefully advance!) our profession. Innovation is paramount in keeping our archives afloat. Inventive programming, technology, and avenues of communication will help us to stay visible and usable, which will, in turn, obviate the necessity of our institutions.
Got ideas?
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