Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Creative Commons & Webcomics

Posted by Hemos on from the intentionally-left-blank dept.

xerexes writes "This week Comixpedia is publishing an article written by T Campbell called "Creative Commons and Webcomics" which features a roundtable discussion with comments from Lawrence Lessig, Neeru Paharia, Mia Garlick, JD Frazer and Cory Doctorow. Traditional copyright faces webcomics with an uncomfortable choice. Its restrictions, properly enforced, would mean a virtual end to crossovers and homages, fan art, fan fiction, and many other staples that make the webcomic a more entertaining creation and foster artistic growth. A total lack of copyright, however, leaves unscrupulous readers free to "bootleg" subscription sites, program tools to deprive comics of advertising revenue, and even profit from others' labor without permission. The Creative Commons license presents a possible solution. It lets copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining others, through a variety of licensing and contract schemes, which may include dedication to the public domain or open content licensing terms. "

2 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. As an example of how well things can work... by Denyer · · Score: 4, Informative
    http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20050223.html

    http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp02242005.shtml

    http://www.checkerboardnightmare.com/d/20050224.ht ml

    http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/fanart/queenofwan ds.html

    Of course, this being Slashdot, five people have probably already posted this by now...

    --
    Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Gates M'dna wgah'nagl fhtagn.
  2. Fair use, Fan Art and the plague of my daily life by StreetFire.net · · Score: 4, Informative


    This reminds me a lot of a problem my company is facing. One of partner sites that uses our free video hosting software http://video.freevideoblog.com/ gets a lot of "fan" dedications to popular TV shows like Buffy the Vampire slayer or Anime music videos set to popular songs. It's damn good work, and IMOHO only creates more awareness and popularity to the original work, but because we're paranoid of getting sued by the RIAA and MPAA, we have to delete those videos from the system.

    I have to wonder how the Music industry gets around this as often I hear music that "samples" tracks from other artists, or even sound bites from TV and the movies. So I know there is a process in place to take an original work and modify it (And combine it with your own original work) to create your own unique art...but I don't know what it is, or where that shade of gray turns black.

    I have to say that in this lawsuit happy time I'm more inclined to ere on the side of caution, but I feel a lot of unique and original work is lost or covered up by folks like myself moderating content off the system.

    Anyhow just some idle rambling from my own experience.

    -Adam