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Creative Commons
mpawlo writes "Creative Commons just opened to the public. From the initial statement: "We are building a Web-based application for dedicating copyrighted works to the "public domain," and for generating flexible, generous licenses that permit copying and creative reuses of copyrighted works." Read also the article in the New York Times." There's also an older story that summarizes the concept behind the site, although I think their FAQ's do a pretty good job. A page at the Berkman Center documents some of the development of the project (although it doesn't render properly in konqueror for whatever reason). rbeattie describes it like so: "At O'Reilly's ongoing Emerging Technology Conference today, Creative Commons gave a presentation about their new service, an "easy way for people (like scholars, musicians, filmmakers, and authors--from world-renowned professionals to garage-based amateurs) to announce that their works are available for copying, modification, and redistribution." They've provided an online wizard where you can choose the type of license and restrictions you want to put on your work, and then they'll provide a circled CC logo you can put on your website with links to the license. In addition they are providing search functionality for those looking for public domain content - the license is provided in "machine readable form" (read: XML probably) so that it can be easily indexed/searched."
It's a tragedy that places like this must exist. Copyrights are so far from their original intent in the United States, they are almost alughable. Almost.
Religion is the opiate of the masses. The wealthy smoke the real stuff.
GNUArt opened a GPL'ed Art Gallery in January 2001.
I am however pleased to see that other people begin in the same direction which will make this way of thinking more and more popular until the merchants begin to think differently about what copyright protection should mean for the artists.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
As a physicist, I know the importance of taking credit for my work. My livelihood depends on my continuing to make advances in the field of science and I can't do that if other people are building on the foundations I keep laying down. IP law has it's flaws, yes, but the basic structure is sound. It keeps people away from my work until I've done all I can with it--and that's good for everybody.
Read their FAQ: they aren't advocating or only advertising works which get released into the public domain. They're more interested in allowing authors to create their own license that allows and restricts whatever the author feels is good, in case neither of the two extremes of standard copyright or public domain are suitable for an author.
From what I recall, Opencontent.org has been around for a few years.