G’morning from germany!

Some days ago the Public Domain Manifesto has been published:
http://publicdomainmanifest...

I believe, that it is a very important document that should be signed an supported by as many peoples and organizations as possible. Please read it - and spread the word if you find it valuable enough!

I think, for current cultural contributions, I come in somewhere in the middle, which is why I am here at CC.

I am for what you might call the “common domain.” That is, artists can and should contribute content to culture that is unhampered by the kind of restrictions that treat art like an imprisoned thing: don’t alter it, don’t move it onto a different device, don’t copy it, don’t even listen to it unless you re-license it.

But artists should be able to do that and still retain some control over the work. For instance, one thing I insist on is attribution, and my licensing usually reflects that. Use my work, even commercially, but please acknowledge that the part I did comes from me - don’t pretend I didn’t help, in a nutshell.

I saw a sad example of this last year, when a guitarist and composer named Lawrence Fritts put a large number of blues backing tracks into the public domain. Within a few months, someone had set up a website claiming to have authored these tracks, and was selling them as “blues practice kits.”

And really, since Mr. Fritts had ceded his rights, the unscrupulous webmaster was within his rights.

By retaining the copyright to my work, while freely sharing it, I protect both myself, and those whom I wish to share it with. Nobody can legally claim they performed a CC licensed piece and scam folks with that claim… but they can reuse what the licensor created to their hearts’ content.

The public domain is an important part of our culture. But so is the commons - a place where trust can be established, authorship can be retained, and culture can be developed.

looking at the site linked in the original post, it looks like this is very much supported by the Creative Commons organization (listed as one of the initial signing organizations), who of course have not only created all of those licenses we use here, but have also founded ccMixter and funded it until recently when ArtisTech Media started paying the bills.