[Infowarrior] - A guide to Creative Commons thinking

[Richard Forno]

Unbounded Freedom

A guide to Creative Commons thinking for cultural organisations

The growing popularity of cultural commons thinking sets new and provocative
challenges for traditional copyright law. Changes are occurring in politics,
the economy and law, but first and foremost in the domain of culture.

One third of all internet users have now downloaded music, videos and
information using P2P file sharing software. New attitudes to the
accessibility and ownership of intellectual property have become a force for
change that will transform communication in the information age. User-led
innovation is reshaping cultural production so that it is trans-national,
more egalitarian, less deferential, much more diverse and above all,
self-authored.

Creative industries face the challenge of keeping pace with this sharing
economy, and any organisation wishing to work with them will need to
understand the thinking, ethics and communicative conventions of rising
generations.

Written by Rosemary Bechler, this short book argues that we must look at the
history of traditional copyright law in order to understand the current
debates about ownership and availability. In doing so, it not only
elucidates the development of intellectual property law, but also reveals a
unique glimpse of existing principles and developing trends. Bechler argues
that Creative Commons thinking enables cultural organisations to embark on
mutual relationships of trust with huge new publics. Describing the
transformative potential of new attitudes, she offers us a vision of the
future in which Œunbounded freedom¹ is not simply a romantic notion.

This is the first work from the British Council to be published under a
Creative Commons licence. It has been designed specifically for you to
download. To view the document use Adobe Reader, which can be downloaded for
free.

Download your free copy of Unbounded Freedom here
http://www.counterpoint-online.org/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=618