Science Addiction

You may not have noticed it (how dare you!), but this blog is licensed CC-Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This means:

You are free to:

• Share- copy, distribute, transmit (send it to your enemies!)
• Remix- adapt the articles (I’m waiting for the musical)

Under the following conditions:

• Attribution- You must attribute it to me.
• Noncommercial- You may not use it for commercial purposes.
• ShareAlike- If you alter, transform or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same license.

So why did I choose this license?

• To paraphrase Cory Doctorow, the only thing worse than an author who’s work is pirated is an author who’s work is not read. So share!
• The Internet isn’t one-way. It is interactive. There is an archaic notion that my job is to write this blog and your job is to read. You and me are standing on the shoulders of giants. On the Internet, you stand on my shoulders, I’ll stand on yours and we’ll make one weird circus freak. So adapt and remix!
• I have an ego, and I don’t like people taking credit for my work. So attribute (to me)!
• Stand on my shoulders if you want, but don’t sell tickets to it (without my permission). So non-commercial! This is basically so that no one is making money off me without my knowledge. When asked, I’ve been known to give permission.
• And clearly, I can’t let you share and remix my work, but then allow you to prevent further sharing and remixing. So share alike!

You’re free to use this license (or one of the many others Creative Commons has written) for any of your creative works. There’s even a comic (CC-licensed of course) to explain all the licenses.

No kidding. The paper (by Gary Pulsinelli) is about the ownership rights of artistic works among goblins in JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Last year, I had noted that they sounded a lot like the RIAA/MPAA/ MAFIAA. This paper has a different take, but tips its hat to this blog post and the reader comments. If you read the paper, it is in footnote #29 on page 5.

Daniel Plainview’s “I drink your milkshake” line from “There Will be Blood” has gained a lot of pop-culture traction lately (most famously on SNL). While he wasn’t directly talking about the remix culture, it’s great to hear artists that understand that the more they get “slagged” the better it is for culture (and them). Here’s Daniel Day-Lewis:

“If people absorb something you’ve done… and people can make something else out of it, that’s delightful to me. I come from two cultures – England and Ireland – where there’s a long tradition of… we call it slagging in Ireland, taking the piss in England, and if you can offer up something that people can slag you for, they’re always grateful for that.”
[From IMDb]