How I invented Creative Commons
(director Michael W. Dean with a copy of DIY or DIE: Burn This DVD)
SO….I sent out press releases last night for the upcoming DIY or DIE download giveaway on Zune Marketplace.
Eight people e-mailed me already today and told me I “should put the film out under Creative Commons”.
Here’s my reply:
I am very dedicated to sticking with the choices I made on this film, and I stand by them.
I love Creative Commons, and think it makes the world a better place. I did put a out book Digital Music – DIY Now! under CC, and even gave away the Quark files and high-rez images so people could translate or “remix” it.
But I’m very weary of people suggesting (and sometimes telling me) what to do with my art. Nothing against you, and you’ll have to excuse me while I climb up on my soapbox….See, you have to understand you’re probably the 300th person to tell me “You should put the film out under Creative Commons” in the past four years, and it wears me out.
In calling this article “How I invented Creative Commons”, I am certainly not implying that Lawrence Lessig copied my idea (he didn’t), but rather I’m saying that he was working on Creative Commons while I was simultaneously and independently coming up with a similar distribution model for DIY or DIE…with no knowlege of what Lessig was up to.
I released DIY or DIE commercially through Music Video Distributors on VHS on 10/29/2002 (PDF sales sheet), six weeks before Creative Commons published their first licenses. I released it on DVD as DIY or DIE: Burn This DVD (the name kinda says it all) on 1/28/2003 (see same sales sheet.) But the DVD was authored and already named by October of 2002.
From Wikipedia: “The initial set of Creative Commons licenses was published on December 16, 2002.”
Basically, I feel I invented something very much like Creative Commons myself, before I ever heard of CC, before CC went public, with the way I released DIY or DIE (copyrighted, but giving people permission in the license of the VHS and DVD to make 10 copies for friends, and allowed each of those ten people to make 10 copies. I am also selling the DVD cheap, 8 bucks.)
Many people don’t realize that CC is not always an alternative to copyright, but sometimes a set of parameters within copyright. CC material is often copyrighted, and the various CC licenses simply give the end user more options, within the scope of the existing copyright.
I did the same thing with my DVD. It was copyrighted, and I made exceptions for non-commercial use.
The DIY or DIE DVD is, as far as I know (correct me if I’m wrong), the first instance of a commercial media product being released under copyright but giving users express permission to make non-commercial copies. Also, the DVD was released with no copy protection, and no region encoding.
–MWD
p.s.
The reason I didn’t include anything in the DVD license about downloads is that in 2002 the bandwidth didn’t really exist to cheaply give away massive numbers of copies of a movie online.
DIY or DIE was the first independent film (and probably the first film) ever released on DVD with subtitles in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.
When I toured with DIY or DIE (fun photos here), I was probably the second or third person to tour Europe with a self-booked tour of a digital film, in 2003. (Scott Beibin did it before me, with the Lost Film Fest.)
Next week’s high-quality DIY or DIE giveaway on Zune Marketplace (and eventually as a direct download from the Libsyn blog where I’m hosting it) is NOT the first instance of a commercial DVD being given away free as a high-quality download. It’s probably the second. (I thought it was the first, and embarrassingly, sent out press releases to that effect, then sent out an updated “Please us this instead” press release an hour later when I was corrected).
I thought it was the first, but someone pointed out that Jason Scott allowed friends to put his BBS Documentary (great film, by the way) on BitTorrent in 2005, and he linked the Torrent on his site.
Even though Jason didn’t host the media files himself, due to the nature of how Bittorrent works, I feel that a director linking someone else’s torrent really *does* constitute giving the film away himself.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
But, what about the environment ,MWD?
I think you must be violating some suburban zoning regulation by igniting that bio-hazardous material.
Fer Chrissakes,…. think about the children!
November 11th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Ummm…I…um…added the flames…in,…you know, Photoshop.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:54 pm
CC is good cause its got lots of offices around the world. less lawyers involved in distribution of art the better I reckon. for the introverted sometimes wondering art person, CC is something that can open doors and bring back/or create flow. as you kind of get at. CC in the US and CC in Europe are also different, mainly cause of the rights organizations + cultural things as well.
Its a little rude to tell people how to license what they do, i understand where your coming from and especially with your cool distribution idea that found a shadow in the CC light.
so excuse telling you what to do.
it would be more appropriate if the artists that you were filming were licensing with CC to distribute your film with a cc license. I can’t say using a CC license has given me more dollars to create with, yet i can’t say its given me less also. yet how can an artists know either way ? i’m more productive licensing with CC though. So i like the license. i also like your license idea and maybe its something you could work on. it might be more practical for many film makers.
thanks for your film
November 11th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
All good points, Jamison.
As for “it would be more appropriate if the artists that you were filming were licensing with CC to distribute your film with a cc license”, well, CC did not exist, at all, when I was filming. I did get release forms signed by everyone for being in the film, and for use of their music in the film. But it included nothing about most of the rights granted by CC. And to find all of the people in it would be very hard. Two have vanished and left no forwarding info, one recently passed away, and the rest are hella busy.
I think my main point is that for THIS project, the way I did it works. I believe that there is no “one size fits all” protection for all projects. I have used different models for each project, with what I think works best for that.
(I have an upcoming article about this idea, in the next issue of “Release Print” magazine. Will also be online on O’Reilly sooner or later, and I’ll link that.)
Thank you,
MWD
November 13th, 2007 at 3:24 am
I still think thats very dangerous. Be careful!
November 13th, 2007 at 3:31 am
You can’t tell in the photo, but it was raining while we did it.
Hey Beavis….you ever light a guitar pick? Hold it in pliers if you do!
November 18th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Great film, just watched all segments on YT … Jamison above pointed me here.
While I’m mildly surprised and a little glad that there are 8 people who are big enough fans of CC to suggest using it, there’s no reason for a fan to be pushy about it.
Also, lots of people invented something like CC over the past 10 years, some of them even invented public licenses that others would be encouraged to use. CC just happens to have been the first such effort with enough backing to stick around long enough to gather 8 or so fans.
But credit goes to everyone experimenting outside the corporate media box, whether open licensing/net publication or the much longer history of DIY which you document a part of.
November 19th, 2007 at 1:47 am
Nifty….Mike Linksvayer, Vice President of Creative Commons posting on StinkFight. That would have been like when I was in a band if John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin came to our gig. I’m a fan.
Glad you liked DIY or DIE, I dig the stuff you folks do. I consider it a high compliment.
Yeah, eight letters telling me to use CC on my film is a lot, but:
1. Between me and my distributor, we sent out a boatload of press releases.
2. A lot of the people on my list are punkers and anarchists, and a lot of them are vehemently anti-copyright.
MWD