Today the Creative commons project got some coverage for launching a wiki. It is a place where anyone can add a case study for using their ground breaking copyright licenses. Most of the world probably doesn't even think about copyright too often, and we probably see that little c in a circle several times each day. What that little c in the circle means is 'this is mine, don't do anything with it." Perhaps we think of copyright as the battle between poor old recording companies trying to save their content from being illegally copied and distributed; a very easy feat by today's standards. It is because of this ease of copying and distribution that the Creative Commons project was formed. Not too many years ago, Lawrence Lessig asked the U.S. and the World, to take a close look at our copyright principles in the light of this new medium, computers. "Everytime we turn on a computer, we are making a copy of someones work; the code that makes the computer run", lessig often says. Every time we load a web page, we are making a copy of someone's content on our machine. Our copyright principles are still largely set in the times when it was much harder to make copies of works than clicking a button. Congress responded to Lessig's plea to consider reforming copyright with, "get creative".

This presentation helped change my entire outlook on media and the issue of copyright. I never gave too much thought to why we copyright things and why it matters one way or another. And I guess many other people were as oblivious to the issue when the Disney corporation decided that it's content was so import as to change the terms of United States copyright several times right under our noses simply to protect their profit machine. Can we blame them? Yes and No. No one can argue that someones profits from their own creations are important to their livelyhood. But we can blame them for being greedy.
When our copyright terms were drafted by our founders, it was said that anyone can protect their creative works for 14 years, renewable once. It was to be limited. This system was put in place so that a) people could have a fair amount of time to capitalize on their creations, and b) it was to ensure that our culture kept growing and building on itself by ensuring nothing became stagnant. The Disney corp. thought he had it wrong every time mickey mouse's copyright was nearing public domain status. As it is today, all creative works will not see the light of the public domain for damn near 150 years(life of the author+70yrs) in some cases. That, to me, is culture completely stalled on the side of the road so that profits can be raked in for a very few amount of people.
I believe that copyright is a good thing, but it must be limited to ensure more creativity. But after reading Lessig's writings on the matter, I have learned that there is value in letting information spread freely as well. Especially in the age of the internet where making copies and spreading information is mere clicks away. But before the Creative Coommons project came to be, there was no legal outlet for this type of information sharing since everything that we touch is automatically copyrighted for 70 years. That means legally, we are telling people automatically not to touch our works for any reason, please ask me. And we know that 'please ask me' is about as practical as trying to get your phone bill changed by calling your phone provider's automated phone tree.
What Lessig set out to do was to allow people to let others know that they can use their works up front. And further, in the age of computers, we have something called metadata, or machine readable 'data about data' that allows content that says 'share me' to be easily found.
One of my favorite things about this story is that congress set in motion a groundswell movement to do something about our predicament. I believe that because of the internet, congress' reply of 'get creative' could actually happen! It paints a very good lesson for the masses who are generally very apathetic when it comes to politics and government in our country; get up and do something because even small seeds can grow and be very powerful, very fast in the age of the internet.