Understanding Free Cultural Works

Even stating in writing that I hereby place this code/document/etc. in the public domain doesn't work for some companies because, as you suggest, the status of public domain around the world is ambiguous. (This is basically the reason the original MIT/X Consortium license was created.)

This is a bit misleading, IMHO. The important difference between CC0 and public domain is that PD is a copyright status, while CC0 is a license. Which means you use CC0 to grant PD-like status to works you hold the copyright for. You cannot (should not) attach a CC0 to somebody else's work just because you think it is PD. And vice versa: while stating "I release my work into PD" is probably usable in the US, it is really incompatible with the continental construction of copyright; for that, the explicit granting of a "most possibly free" license is a better fit. (Even though you might doubt even CC0 is bulletproof there...)

I also seldom read it advocated, but maybe it also is, because it is already quite established?

(relativly speaking)

On many sites, I find the CC disclaimer to my joy, of course not nearly as I want to, but still quite a lot.

> Also, is Lawrence Lessig still active?

He hosts https://equalcitizens.us/anotherway/

> but today next to nobody really thinks or talks about it.

How much that is similar on how Linux evangelization is also harder to find? Linux won the battle, Cloud computing is mainly an unchallenged Linux realm.

I see many institutions adopting Creative Commons and similar permissive licenses. So, there is no need to pontificate about Creative Commons anymore. From teacher to newspapers use Wikipedia as a reliable source. Even The British Museum (https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permis...) uses Creative Commons licenses.

For me it seems that Creative Commons is the status quo and the focus rather changes towards the content itself and what can be produced.

Perhaps, depends on your circles too I guess. That said, I think it's partly because it succeeded in many ways. It has become an established and accepted concept which we don't often stop to appreciate.

It is very present in the current discussion around open access publications in academia. Lots of universities and funding agencies encourage or even enforce that scientific papers and/or teaching material they finance be published under a CC license.

I think the two biggest factors leading to the decline of free culture as a movement were:

(1) Lessig (who coined the term "free culture" and helped found many related organizations) leaving the movement to focus on e.g. money in politics, and

(2) The absence of any big tent organization promoting free culture as a movement, rather than focusing narrowly on a specific topic e.g. licenses as Creative Commons does. I co-founded the now defunct Students for Free Culture, and we were trying to do this, but we were focused on the youth demographic. Nobody ever took up the banner for the world at large, and when SFC died it felt like that was kind of the end of evangelizing for free culture.

this needs to honestly be discussed more. Even though the article is more about discussion restrictions on the concept, the whole point of non-free culture should be to ensure the artist can realize monetary gains from his work in order to reward the time spent. Also to enable the artist to have some control over the distribution and direction of his work, as well as incentivize new and original work.

CC doesn't do anything for the artist.

it's great for distributors, who can aggregate and monetize free content, and remixers, who have a base of ready-made content to use as a basis for their own works. And of course the audience. But i don't really see the point of it as an artist.

David Revoy (who created the (awesome) Pepper and Carrot cartoon, which is both freely licensed and the source is released) was recently interviewed on the Libre Lounge podcast (and another one in French). In the Libre Lounge episode they covered this, he essentially uses the Patreon model and when big publishers publish his work they do it under the same Creative Commons license everyone else can and in addition they fund his work using Patreon too, even though they are not obligated to do so. The episode is quite interesting in several ways.

https://www.davidrevoy.com/article771/podcasts-interviews https://librelounge.org/episodes/36-david-revoy-on-pepper--c...

You bring up an important and oft-discussed question. We're starting to see creators who make a living largely or entirely from voluntary donations.

E.g. Abbadon author of the incredible "Kill Six Billion Demons" https://killsixbilliondemons.com/about/

One of the things I wish Etsy had is a leaderboard of users (sellers) who have become financially independent through them.

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FWIW I'm one of the people that think that, as automation advances, we should see a massive decrease in cost-of-living and a corresponding increase in free time.

If that happens, we could see people becoming couch potatos or creators. I was going to say something about hedonists, but creating things is inherently pleasurable. I knew a guy who built furniture in his hope shop until the day he died. He loved it. He would give the pieces away. Beautiful scrollwork in wood.

Personally, I believe that's the long term solution: "Let the robots do the work and we'll take their pay."

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In the short term, it's the old story: If you must be an artist either be very rich or get comfortable being very poor. You might find a patron.

The new thing on the block is, of course, crowdsourcing a distributed patron. And some people are doing that. "Ten thousand fans"

> how does the person who creates a Free Cultural Work pay their bills while doing it?

A lot of my poetry is released under the CC-BY licence[1]. I pay my bills by doing other work - as does almost every other person who writes and publishes poetry. There hasn't been a decent living wage from poetry, available to the majority, since Homer (and he/they would probably argue they weren't paid enough for their effort).

[1] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/