Re: Question re: Lessig and the Creative Commons project

[David Wiley <dw2@opencontent.org>]

On 10/1/02 3:39 PM, Bolick, Bob taunted me by saying:

> Glad to see the info-wants-to-be-free crowd actually endorsing licensing
> and respect for copyright.  ;-)

This is an interesting perspective. I've seen the formation of things like
OpenContent and later Creative Commons much more as a preemptive strike by
the info-wants-to-be-free crowd to provide legal guarantees that info can
be free when info-ought-to-be-owned folks try to come in and make a
variety of claims against information that the free crowd tries to make
available.

This was certainly my motive in obtaining a contractual agreement to a
specific license before agreeing to publish my last book. I had fears that
the publisher would eventually come back to the info-ought-to-be-owned
mindset. Once we had an agreement that the Open Publication License would
be used, which meant that I could provide a free electronic copy of the
book online, I could contribute with peace of mind...

Just another perspective ;)

David

--
David Wiley, PhD
Assistant Professor
Instructional Technology
Utah State University
http://wiley.ed.usu.edu/