Hail Caesar: Creative Commons and the Small Press
This crossed my desk today...
Brandon H. Bell About 950 Words
site: http://www.fantastique-unfettered.com
blog: http://nithska.blogspot.com
editors@fantastique-unfettered.com
Hail Caesar: Creative Commons and the Small Press
Brandon H. Bell
"*It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear, but the pale and the
hungry-looking.*"
--Julius Caesar
1. Write story
2. Get said story published
3. Profit! Karma!
I believe short fiction is important. The small press magazine I edit
(Fantastique Unfettered, aka FU) uses a Creative Commons license, CC-BY-SA*,
for reasons related to this view, and in service to the dual end-goals of
money and karma on behalf of the writers we publish.
Our alignment is not indie against corporate, small against large, or fan
against pro. Those are foolish stances. Our alignment is one against
obscurity**, expressed via a pragmatism that acknowledges money may or
may not follow our good karma. We certainly hope it does: our goal, after
providing quality fiction to our readers, is to pay writers professional
rates.
This article will appear in the second issue of FU, but I hope it's not
where you originally read it. You see, it carries the same CC-BY-SA
license.
A Creative Commons, Attribution, ShareAlike license, meaning that others
can
do pretty much anything they want with the article, but they must give
attribution and release under the same. Each instance of a presentation,
adaptation, or derivative of the article is, essentially, a finger
pointed
back at FU. Um, not *that *finger.
The old world-think of walled gardens and content farms suggests the
only
way forward is copyright extensions, possibly to perpetuity. Our
old-thinkers recognize the current audience is merely the first
audience.
It's a numbers game, and while individual creators will not make much to
crow over statistically, the bulk IP of the mass of creators certainly
will.
These Caesars would own human culture, every song a commercial jingle,
every
myth protected by a (tm).
I'm not an ideologue: I've stated in blog posts that I don't know how
well
CC-BY-SA scales, and for the Stephen Kings of the world, traditional
copyright may be the only reasonable default for their work. Creative
Commons is a tool, in a toolbox that includes tradition copyright, and I
have no prohibition against the latter (though even if I reach
'rockstar'
level, I would ensure my work returns to the culture at some point.)
With Aether Age (our first CC-BY-SA project, a shared world of
space-faring
Greeks and social revolutions in Egypt) we've made the work immediately
available to the culture. The same is true of FU. The same will be true
of
my novella, Elegant Threat, to be release in the M-Brane Double #1 later
this year. The New People by Alex Jeffers, the other half of the Double,
will carry a traditional copyright. My first novel may carry a
traditional
copyright, depending on the publisher.
Writers deserve to be paid for their work, and we hope that you, dear
reader, will take an active interest in supporting short fiction. If not
FU
then some other venue. As a writer I hope to someday make loads of cash
at
my craft and to have people bemoan my place on the NYT list. *That
hack,*they'll complain as I laugh my way to the bank. (Yeah, it's a
*writer thing.*) So, a final reminder that our use of Creative Commons
licensing is not purely ideological or a revolt against traditional
publishing.
Creative Commons licensing does not rob writers of ownership of their
work,
the ability to publish it in anthologies, collections, or even to waive
the
license to accommodate incoming requests to publish/adapt under other
terms.
The license is a tool to reach readers, and to proclaim cultural
relevance
to the future. Maybe our work, and work like it, becomes an island of
open/libre culture in a future of copyrighted IP masquerading as culture.
We
intend to run FU much like a nonprofit (though it isn't a nonprofit), to
not
profit off the periodical ourselves, but to use any incoming funds to
make
FU self-sustaining, then better pay our contributors.
CC-BY-SA is a tool for proactively freeing art to the culture, and will
be
right for some projects, and wrong for others. It is a tool for
generating
karma and reaching more readers. The other CC licenses and traditional
copyright are also valid tools.
While the small press is a valuable part of the greater cultural
ecosystem,
big publishers (and big writers) are our heroes. Copyright is,
ultimately,
agnostic, insofar as it allows creators and their families to benefit
from
their work. The same is true of Creative Commons, and use of CC licenses
does not preclude profitability.
It would be easy to stop there, with that pithy statement ignoring the
real
challenge we face in obscurity. The small press is a playground for the
new,
the odd, the possibly non-commercial --or not commercial right now--,
the
niche. The small press bears the responsibility to pursue the mandates of
a
given niche while striving for a quality of content, presentation, and a
dedication to the idea that if anyone should be hungry and unsatisfied
with
imitation and shallowness, the merely commercially viable, it is us.
To close on a theme, perhaps our Caesar is that societal voice addressed
to
those who would participate in the culture, that suggests: *you are a
consumer, only*.
We have come not to praise Caesar, but to bury him.
Please steal this article and post anywhere you like, just provide
attribution and keep it under the same license. Encourage others to do
the same.***
footnotes:
*http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/
**See the Tim O'Reilly article here http://openp2p.com/lpt/a/3015
***Use the above link for the general license, attribution: Brandon H. Bell,
editor, Fantastique Unfettered, http://www.fantastique-unfettered.com