Why I use Creative Commons

You may have noticed that I typical sign off my articles with a Creative Commons attribution. In case you're not aware, Creative Commons is an alternative licence to traditional copyright. With this article, I'd like to explain why I choose Creative Commons, the specific licence I use, and why you might consider using Creative Commons for your own projects.

Before all that though, one point I want to make abundantly clear: I am in no way against traditional forms or copyright. I do not think creative expressions should be inherently 'free'. In my view, it is entirely reasonable for artists and authors to making a living off their creations. Indeed, I'm sure if I'd created properties like Star Wars or Game of Thrones, I'd retain the copyright and profit from them.

I'll return to this point on monetising creative works later. For now, let's get into the discussion proper and I'll explain why Creative Commons is the right model for me.

Why CC works for me

To begin with, I generally use CC BY 4.0 Deed attribution[^1]. This means that anyone can reproduce my articles, adapt them, or update them in any medium. The only restrictions are that I must receive credit and licencing of derivative works cannot prevent others from using my original article as specified in the CC licence. You could even make money from the iterations you make based on my work - it's that open. So why did I decide to adopt this model?

My essays aren't commercial products.

I don't make a living from either of my blogs. Mostly I blog here for fun, writing about whatever strikes me as interesting in an relaxed style. Quick Learning has a different focus - there I want to discuss technical topics I'm trying to learn. And it's not commercial either.

The reasons I don't see my work as commercial are that the topics discussed are often niche so unlikely to attract a large audience. Also the subjects covered are so eclectic that I doubt I could find an audience interested in everything I write. And, to top all this off, I update the blogs at irregular intervals with no regard to SEO. In short, there is no way I'm going to make money from this.

You might wonder then, why I bother with the effort? I'll get into that in more detail later, for now I just want it to be explicitly clear that my blogs serve no commercial purpose.

So one reason I avoid traditional copyright is that there is nothing here to copyright.

As far as I understand, a copyright grants an author exclusive rights to distribute their work and profit from it. Since there is nothing commercial here, copyrighting these articles doesn't make much sense.

That might sound rather academic, but there is a practical dimension too. For instance, say I did copyright an article and someone went on to copy it and post it on their site, what would I do? To enforce the copyright, I suppose I'd have to somehow contact them and request they take the article down. And if they don't, I guess I'd have to sue them. In practice, that is never going to happen. Since I'm not making any money in the first place, I have zero incentive to spend any time and money, chasing someone up and trying to sue them.

Another quality of Creative Commons licencing is that it gives me some legal framework without creating an adversarial relationship between myself and my readers. Under traditional copyright if a reader does anything with my work there is some assumption I will seek legal redressed. Whereas with Creative Commons, basically my readers can do what they want, they just need to give me attribution. Doesn't seem like a bad deal right?

My blogs are experimental

Delving a little bit deeper into my motivation, by not monetise my blogs, I have tremendous freedom, I can essentially write on any subject I want. This is appealing compared to writing a commercially orientated blog, where I'd have to find a broadly interesting topic, find an audience and focus on it. [^2]

Additionally, I consider my blogs experimental in the sense that the content is in someway unfinished. By that I mean, nothing here is as polished or edited as what you might find in a professional online new source. In fact with ql blog, often the projects I'm writing up are themselves incomplete.

I'm quite happy then for my readers to take any of this content and make it their own. Indeed, if they can find a way to commercialise the material I'd by curious to see it...

So in summary I think CC BY 4.0 encourages experimentation. All I ask for is reasonable attribution and you can do what you like with this content.

Having said all that, there is another long established framework for distributing works without copyright: putting the works in the public domain. So why then don't I just put everything in the public domain?

Why I don't use public domain licencing

If my articles where in the public domain anyone could use them for any purpose with no obligation to credit me. I think the obligation to credit the author is the main difference between CC BY 4.0 Deed and public domain.

Attribution is important to me because preparing this content does takes effort. While these blog updates are not the most polished works, it still takes time and effort to come up with ideas, write them up and edit them, even in a limited way.

Therefore, while I don't expect to earn any monetary rewards from these efforts, I do think it's reasonable that if others use this material they should credit me for the original work.

Conclusion

Hopefully this clarifies why I use Creative Commons and perhaps it might encourage you to do the same.

There are a number of loose ends I've not been able to get to in this article. For instance the rise of generative AI, which derives from works published online, makes the topic of ownership is only becoming more salient.

Also while I do think CC BY 4.0 Deed is worth considering for written materials, I'm not sure it's right for people working in other media, such as art and music.

Lastly, having had some experience coding, I do find myself wondering if there is something authors and essayists might learn from the open source software community. Perhaps that's a topic I will return too...

[^1]: It's worth noting that there are other forms of Creative Commons attribution with different levels of attribution and transformation permitted. For instance some forms only allow partial transformation or non-commercial use. Check Creative Commons Lisences for more information [^2]: Somewhat paradoxically, I feel I can better serve what audience I do have by not commercialising my blogs. I certainly couldn't cover the niche topics that interest me since the audience wouldn't be large enough to justify the costs. I guess this is somewhat relate to Cory Doctorow's idea of enshittification, where commercial interests often lead a once tremendously consumer friendly product deteriorating over time.