Free Culture movement? Color me curious, what's this?
Oh boy! Prepare to be enlightened!
First of all, Nina Paley's great videos shows the value of free culture. Note that these has been release with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license 3.0 U.S. Created by Nina Paley.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTyWS-tuoWk"]Copying is not Theft[/ame]
All work is derivative.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcvd5JZkUXY"]All Creative Work is Derivative[/ame]
The purpose of the Free Culture movement is to reform or abolish Copyright so that creative works made in the past would be given to the public domain. From 1924 on, much of our culture has been locked up tight away behind Copyrights, and in effect there are powerful Intellectual Monopolies over our culture.
The Copyright Laws that have come into place, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, actually is a framework for Censorship. That's why I like to spell censorship as ©ensorship. Copyright Law has been in existence since the 16th Century when the Government of Jolly Old England had set up the first Government Sanctioned guild of Stationers to control the printing press. They never did want seditious and libelous writing to be published through out the land, and so it was the Stationers' job to act as the first "thought police" as it were.
Early in the 18th Century, the government of Jolly Old England had gotten used to the printing press and allowed the Stationers' monopoly to expire. To combat this and to make sure that they had a monopoly over publication, the Stationers rallied behind the artists and authors, saying that its the author's best interest that Copyright be continued. Unfortunately for us, the Stationers won! The Statute of Anne was introduced and so authors can finally print their works.
In 1787, the Constitutional Convention had convened and they had put this into the Constitution:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, known as the Copyright Clause, the Copyright and Patent Clause (or Patent and Copyright Clause), the Intellectual Property Clause and the Progress Clause, empowers the United States Congress:
“To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
I'm not saying that was bad, however in the present day a certain
company and many others including a certain singer turned congressman, had fought to extend the copyright law beyond Alexander Hamilton's 14 years to Life plus 100 years or there abouts. This is BEYOND reasonable since the net effect that it has effectively locked away 95% of our culture behind a vault and made it possible only for the VERY RICH to produce any kind of "art." Mostly its just crap.
When Wizards of the Coast pulled all of its pdfs off of the Market, it was the last straw for me. They effectively had become like Disney; locking away a major part of our heritage as gamers.
So, I'm rebelling. The campaign setting I'm working on will be released with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license (U.S.) along with the rules of Pathfinder and the OGL. I feel that my campaign setting will be Valued more if people like you will be free to copy it, build on it, adapt it, and do everything else to it. The only thing I'm branding is my natural monopoly to credit.
I'll be taking donations. And I'll be releasing merchandise related to my campaign setting. However, you will be able to take it because I am effectively giving it to you and the community. I'm not locking this away. If its good, it will last forever in the hands of Enworlders, Wizards of the Coast fans, and every one who plays roleplaying games. If it's bad, it will just burn up in the fire of public opinion.
That's incentive to create something better, isn't it? You can get more information from this organization:
questionCopyright.
