YOU DON’T NEED MY PERMISSION: FREEING SCHOLARSHIP BY HACKING COPYRIGHT Alycia Sellie Brooklyn College CUNY IT Conference December 2, 2011

I AM NOT A LAWYER.

WHAT IF I DON’T WANT THE WORK THAT I CREATE TO BE RESTRICTED FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE +70 YEARS AFTER MY DEATH?

PERMISSION CULTURE With standard copyright, you can allow others to use your work—but only when they ask permission, and after you grant each person specific rights. Lawrence Lessig: Free Culture vs. Permission Culture: “The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in a world in which creation requires permission and creativity must check with a lawyer.” (173)

HACKING COPYRIGHT What I’m calling “hacking copyright” here refers to the ways in which we can license our work to allow wider use—without requiring that others ask permission, and without the intermediation of copyright experts and lawyers.

A FEW FREE CULTURE LICENSES: Gnu Public License (GPL) “a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.” Creative Commons Licenses “licenses and tools [that] forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved setting that copyright law creates.”

WHAT RIGHTS DO CC LICENSES GRANT USERS THAT STANDARD COPYRIGHT DOES NOT? Free licenses can grant the right (without asking permission) to: The right to read/view/copy Share or redistribute Remix and create new works Restrict only specific uses (i.e. noncommercial use— but noncommercial licenses are not seen as free licenses by many)

FREE LICENSES ARE STILL COPYRIGHT Free Licenses are not outside of copyright law. Even with a free license, copyright law still governs the use of your work. “Every Creative Commons license works around the world and lasts as long as applicable copyright lasts (because they are built on copyright).”

ARE FREE LICENSES THE SAME AS OPEN ACCESS? Yes and No: Definitions of Open Access and problems therein Peter Suber’s definition of OA includes “free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” But as we’ve seen, Free licenses=a form of Copyright. Usually, OA definitions=the right to view, but maybe not the right to redistribute, remix, etc.

WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO INSURE THAT MY WORK WILL BE USED (EVEN WHILE I AM STILL ALIVE)? Nina Paley’s mimiandeunice.com

FREE YOUR WORK!