I’m using Creative Commons licensing for the articles on this blog (see the button at the bottom of the page). What if I later wanted to release something from here under a different license? Cory Doctorow recently relicensed Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, switching from a medium-restrictive license to a very-unrestrictive license. That makes sense. But could you go the other way? Could you decide to change a book you published under unrestrictive licensing to a higher restriction? Would it apply retroactivley? Would the new restrictions not apply to copies someone had obtained previous to the change in licensing? Are licenses attached to the copy or to the master or what? Presumably the latter. What if it wasn’t physically published, but was just, say, text from the internet or a file on a computer? How could you prove that any given person had obtained it after the new restrictions? How could you enforce? I guess you can get away with publishing until someone says you can’t, and then the previous copies were legal, but any more copies you make aren’t? What if you wanted to sell your material to a publisher. Do book publishers buy your permission to publish your material, or like recording companies, do they buy the rights to that material, and henceforth get to decide who publishes it and when? If the latter, would a publisher be less interested in material that had previously been published under unrestrictive licensing?

On a related tangent, it seems like one of the trends in the copyright wars is that the backbone of less restrictive intellectual property schemes is the fully restrictive original copyright scheme. Creative Commons makes big deal out of how (cc) complements but doesn’t work against (C) – I think the point they are making is that same that a lot of people are using to defend open source software licensing against SCO’s claims that such licenses are illegal in the face of copyright’s consitutional status in the US. The point being that you by defualt have full(ish) control over all works that you create, and that control is exactly what gives you the right to filter what control you will enforce. I think. I’m still not clear on the interelations of IP and copyright and patent and whatnot.

I went to a show in Whistler last night called “tuned women” that was a showcase of a bunch of local female songwriters playing their songs and backing each other up on stage. it was pretty good, there were 4 or 5 really solid peformers and 5 or 6 really good songs. I should probably be trying to write more songs. As in any. It’s been years since I started and finished a song, and that’s way too long. There’s no reason to think I can do it well, but there’s no reason not to fail at it.

My housemate’s dad is visiting her, and is currently chillaxing at the house because he tweaked his calves yesterday trying to go skiing up at whistla. He doesn’t seem to mind having to sit around and chat. We got talking about (among other things) soil quality in neo-tropical rainforests. This is second time in three days this has come up in a conversation. We were talking about clear cutting on vancouver island, where he lives, and how long it really takes for old growth forest to regrow (the last time this came up it was in connection with Jasper Blake’s plans to write a series of environmental themed kids books – you read it here first folks). Point being, an important part of this is that the organisms involved in decomposing vegetative debris are super efficient in most neotropical rain forests (i.e. jungles) and to an extent in northern rainforests. We were commenting on the self-sustaining complexity necessary to the existence of a community of lifeforms which includes such killer decomposers and that phrase “it takes a village to decompose a leaf” popped into my head and I think it’s a nice bit of rhetoric suitable for propoganda. So take it and use my treehuggin freinds, just keep in mind this weblog is licensed under a specific creative commons license.