If you communalize my tractor, I don’t have it any more. If you copy it, we both have one.
Copyleft is not Communism
Category: Free Culture
Lessig and Colbert
Colbert is excellent here. “Remember, NO REMIXING!”
James Kochalka’s “Sita”
Like this isn’t the coolest thing ever: Sita’s first “derivative work”! There she is, in an American Elf comic by James Kochalka! Seeing this comic was a “really so amazing” huge honor for me, and I’m looking forward to seeing more “derivative works” in the future.
BoingBoing
Donatin’ for Sita
Want to donate to the Sita Distribution Project and help get Sita Sings the Blues out of “copyright jail”? Questioncopyright.org is the project’s new Fiscal Sponsor. Donate through them and get a 100% tax writeoff! And the project will get 100% of your donation (minus only what Google Checkout skims).
A word about credits in the film. I’d love to include the name of everyone who donates, and small donations help a lot and are most welcome. But I’m realizing that the names will have to be illegibly tiny to include all of them; or else the credits will go on and on and on and on, which means broadcasters will cut them out and then no one will get to see their names. Unfortunately I think I’m going to have to set some minimum donation amounts to get named in the credits, like $100 maybe. Donations of $1,000 or more get a larger credit under “Production Angels,” and $10,00 or more can be “Executive Producers,” or something like that….Once the film is released, we’ll also have a web site that maintains a list of all (even the smallest) donors (unless they choose to opt out) and that list can keep growing even after the release credits are “set.” Still I love small donations, and I want to encourage them. Any suggestions?
The Nina’s Adventures Copyleft Project
Update: Free Nina’s Adventures bulk archives at archive.org
It’s time to copyleft ALL of my old Nina’s Adventures comics! But the thought of digging through all those old drawings, re-scanning them, cleaning them up in Photoshop and uploading them to archive.org, is more than I can bear. That’s why I’m looking for (a) smart, trustworthy, dedicated volunteer(s) in New York to do it for me. You will need:
- a high-resolution tabloid-sized flatbed scanner or a quality book scanner
- time
- Photoshop (or similar graphics editor) skillz
- a decent web connection
- an excellent reputation and/or references
You will get:
- my gratitude
- other peoples’ gratitude
- a good story to impress your friends
- college credit if you can arrange it
You’ll be handling 14″ x 11″ rare, original, one-of-a-kind Nina’s Adventures drawings, in various stages of decay. Some are turning yellow; some have faded ink; some have corrections and edits pasted on, the glue of which has ceased to adhere so now bits are falling off; some were drawn on “fade-out blue” graph paper which must be edited out of scans.
Once these puppies are scanned and uploaded, they’ll be free for anyone to copy and use. Publish them anywhere! Make buttons and t-shirts! Make that coffee-table book I’ve always wanted! Make derivative works! As long as you attribute the source to me, and license the derivative works under the same share-alike license, you can do whatever you want. But we have to get these scanned and uploaded first, or the revolution will never come.
“But Nina, how will you make money?” Hopefully by selling originals. The more freely the images circulate, the more valuable the originals will become. To this end, I could use another volunteer to help build a web site cataloging all the original strips, both available and sold. It would be nice to allow owners to add their contact information, and otherwise track the locations of all the originals as they go out into the world. Maybe you could manage online auctions or something. And shipping…boy do I need help with shipping.
Potential volunteers please comment below or send an email to nina underscore paley at yahoo dot com. Thank you!