Am glad to announce that my book on Creative Commons titled ‘Copy Right and Left‘ will be launched on July 20th. You can learn more about the book here http://www.CopyRightandLeft.org .
Creative Commons has been an area of deep interest for me and I totally love the concept and the spirit behind it. It was a satisfying experience putting together the book. More importantly, this book was an excuse for me to push myself to understand the subject better.
This book is a non-commercial venture. Making money is the last thing on my mind. I really hope to bring together a short, easy to read book that explains to a layman what Creative Commons is.
The entire contents of the book is available online for everyone to read. In-fact, the entire book is written openly on a Wiki. While we were working on the book we would publish each chapter as and when it was finished. I wanted to make sure that I used the most transparent and most collaborative method to write this book.
The book will also come out as a dead-wood version and will be available for purchase at Rs.99. This is more to cover the printing and distribution cost.
So, how did this book come about? Oh, its a long story. Got the time?
It was in late 2002 that I had first heard of the term creative commons. Honestly, it hadn’t captured my attention until the middle of 2003, when over a million licensed were issued. That was when I sat up to take notice. I started to read more about it in detail and took a strong liking to it’s concept of promoting creativity through sharing.
I was highly impresses with Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons and how just by his sheer conviction was able to make CC into a very respectable organisation. It was the meeting with him and Joi Ito (who later succeeded Lessig as CEO and is now the Director of MIT Media Lab) at iCommons Summits in 2007 at Dubrovnik, Croatia and in 2008 at Sapporo, Japan that made a lasting impression on me.
Much to my dismay though, a lot of us in India were ignorant about Creative Commons (CC) and it’s advantages. I felt it would be useful to have an easy to read book that explains CC with relevant examples. This was a 4 year wish that finally materialised with this attempt now.
I wanted to walk the talk and use the very concept of Creative Commons in the book writing process. I’ve generously used many of the contributions from people who have shared their experience and knowledge under the CC license themselves. Many of the contents of the book are taken from the Creative Commons website itself, particularly encouraged by the staff at Creative Commons headquarters. We have duly credited everyone whose work has been used in this book.
The book itself is licensed under the most liberal creative commons license. This means that anyone is free to use this book and build on top of it. Anyone can freely distribute it or even use it commercially if they wish (with no obligation to share the revenues).
Its at this time that I should really appreciate the hard work and dedication of 3 of my research colleagues, Watson Solomon, Sushmitha and Preethi. Thank you fellas.
The preparations for the July 20 launch have begun. Will update you with more information on that soon. Meanwhile, please mark your calendars. It would be awesome if you can join in body (preferably!) or spirit!
– Kiruba Shankar and the Research Team