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1. ShaunChamberlin
   Shaun Chamberlin

   I received the following comment from Neil L at TT Glasgow via my website:

   "Hi Shaun - am enjoying reading through the book - had a quick question - did you consider publsihing the book under a creative commons licence at all? Cheers Neil"

   I thought I'd bring the discussion over here so that as many people as possible can engage with it.

   The direct answer to the question is no - I didn't think about it! However, what we did think about was how to get input from as many people as possible in the ongoing development of the Transition Vision. As detailed on p.169 of the book, our current plan is to put the book up on Appropedia (as The Transition Handbook is currently) so that everyone can collaborate on updating and improving my first draft, and building the best possible realistic vision of the future we are working towards.

   I'd be interested in whether people (including Neil) think that there would be additional advantages to working under a Creative Commons Licence as well, and what those might be?

   Posted 1 year ago #

2. NeilG42UK
   Member

   Hi Shaun

   Hello - hadn't quite made it to the details of Appropedia but it sounds like it would do similar things whereby the book becomes organic and gets further developed by the users. In terms of Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) I came across info about this via this recent talk by James Boyle at the RSA called "The Public Domain: enclosing the commons of the mind" (http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/vision-videos/james-boyle).

   To quote: "In his new book The Public Domain, Professor James Boyle describes how our culture, science and economic welfare all depend on the delicate balance between those ideas that are controlled and those that are free, between intellectual property and the public domain — the realm of material that everyone is free to use and share without permission or fee"

   You can downlod his book for free from here (http://www.thepublicdomain.org/download/) and you can also read some additional info about why he and his publisher went down the Creative Commons route.

   Personally I think part of this is also being able to make a statement about your intention and it also says something about your values and what is driving you.

   Posted 1 year ago #

3. ShaunChamberlin
   Shaun Chamberlin

   Many thanks for that Neil - James Boyle's talk was a real education for me. I've long been a vague supporter of Creative Commons, and have indeed used it for other work I've done, but I'm starting to understand the issues that lie behind it now. It'll likely be a while before I have time to delve into James' book, but I'm seriously interested - his vision of what science could achieve if copyright got out of the way was an arresting one.

   Besides, how could I resist the fact that the Creative Commons video is soundtracked by my beloved Nine Inch Nails (copyright innovators in their own right)? Since I thank Trent Reznor in my book's acknowledgements it would be remiss of me not to explore following his lead in this area!

   I'm new to all this, but I will certainly have a chat with the friendly folk at Green Books about whether the copyrighting on The Transition Timeline (and The Transition Handbook, and their other books...) could maybe be handled in a way more conducive to creating the kind of future we want to live in. I think you're right about the message Creative Commons licensing sends out too.

   Does anyone else have any thoughts?

   Posted 1 year ago #

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