There is something so gospel-like about the open source world and yet Christendom can take no credit for it. The concept of open source software has been around a while, with many high profile success stories like Linux, OpenOffice, WordPress, to name a few. But the Open Source concept is also becoming increasingly popular in other areas where traditional forms of copyright and control have often hindered creativity. Isn’t it time the Christian world embraced this concept? …time for a new series of posts.
Creative Commons offers tools that aim to restore balance to the world of rights for creative works. The emphasis is on encouraging creativity through sharing, remixing and reuse in a way that encourages greater freedom while legally acknowledging rights of the creator. You may have noticed the cc badge on my blog, allowing readers to remix and reuse stuff I have created.
We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.”
(CreativeCommons.org)
I can’t help think that the Christian world of resources for worship, teaching and mission would be revolutionised by such an approach. For example, over the weekend I used a video I created that included images and animation that I had created. I couldn’t legally share the video on my blog because the artist who created the track I used for backing music would have wanted some kind of royalty (or I’d have had to wait weeks for them to grant rights to publish it). Well, with Creative Commons, I can source music, video, images and more, from artists willing to share and allow me to remix/reuse. As long as I then publish my remixed work in the same way, it is all legal and highly creative.
And so in this series of posts I hope to explore the Creative Commons world of open source content, with an emphasis, as always, on church use.
For now take a look at this video which explains the whole Creative Commons concept applied to different areas of content.