Moving Beyond Copyright (Blog)

[Savage]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Moving Beyond Copyright

[Chris_1977]

Hello Steve,

Maybe you could look into the "opposite" op copyright, known as "copyleft". Have a look at What is Copyleft? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF) .

All the best,
Chris

[Cricket Questions]

*whew* There's a huge one, for me, right off the bat. Thanks, Steve. I'd just read a forum thread in the Buisness section, about the articles-for-pay sites. I felt resistance about such a thing, because of a scarcity mindset I've struggled with in regards to writing. I have held so tightly to any writing I have done, that I'm scarcely willing to write at all.

There is a lot to explore in myself, here. Much to forgive and to love. I am so thankful that you are riding these waves -- freakouts and all. I know that wonderful and knowledgeable dream characters will pour forth to help you smooth out the copyright kinks.

[rodrigo]

Wow, that seems huge.

Well, I think that maybe you should start with something small and increase over time, if you see fit. Something like:

Creative Commons — Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

Where you allow people to share and create derivative work, always giving the proper attribute to you, but not using it for direct commercial purposes. That way, later you can decide if you wanna free it more.

Regarding translation, I think you could coordinate that if you feel like doing it. You could, for example, organize groups of translations per language, where they would be enoughly autonomous so they can decide how to direct things, but not too autonomous to the point that your work would be distorted. That has the advantage of not letting things get too out of hand at the same time not to burden you with overcontrolling.

Another option is to let the translated content be hosted in your own website, maybe after passing some form of quality check. The advantage is that there would be no duplicated work and also there would be a quality standard. The disavantage is that it may mean more work to you and also maybe people prefer to do in their own website so they can monetize it indirectly through ads (since your site doesn't have it anymore). Or maybe you can monetize it yourself with ads using the advantage of having a high traffic website and create some king of share of profits with the translators.

I don't know which option is best, I'm just throwing some ideas.

If you decide to have some kind of translation effort, I would love to translate some of your articles to Portuguese (I'm from Brazil and I aways have problem sharing your articles with people that can't speak english).

Any way you choose to do it, I wish you the best luck. As I said this seems to be a huge step, and we're all cheering for you.

Rodrigo

[Melchior]

Yay! Copyleft! Yay!

[roxyruby]

I think it's great putting these issues out there in the open. I don't know what I could do to help, I hope everything works out for the best of everyone.

[cacheborn]

Great idea, Steve.

The tricky part is to figure out how. Variation of Creative common licence sounds good. Questions like if someone wants to modify it, can s/he? If someones uses it for business, should you also get the benefits?

Maybe it would be better to wait until the 30 day trial is over?

[Savage]

I agree that the HOW seems a bit tricky. That's why I wanted to discuss it with myself (via your feedback).

The part I'm most unsure about is whether it's wisest to try to host and coordinate translation efforts in a centralized manner. That seems good for quality control, but I wouldn't want to manage that myself. It seems like I'd need a good bit of help to make that work. That would be a lot of individually translated articles to coordinate, and I have no experience managing such things.

That's why I'm leaning towards the opposite -- decentralize everything and see what evolves organically. Empower others with greater autonomy. But that means less standardization, potential gaps, and duplication of effort.

This is a tricky trade-off. Which part of my dream world has a good solution for this, or some good experience to draw upon that can shed more light on it?

Maybe it's not an either-or thing though. Perhaps some sort of hybrid solution could work, with some centralized management handled by volunteers and good autonomy for those with creative ideas to pursue.

At this point I only got an inspiration to bring it this far. I don't yet feel a strong inspiration for the next steps.

[rodrigo]

I'm thinking about it...

Let's try to give this a look through the lens of subjective reality.

You can do this coordination "yourself" by delegating it to other parts of yourself, your dream chars. You don't have to descentralize at the point of chaos (ie leaving it to your shadow), but you can maybe work just enough to gather a group of "dream chars" that would take care of it. That group would contain people (dream chars) you feel are well aligned enough with the dreamer purpose for the content. Besides, in the case of translation, as dream chars they would be the parts of you that speak other languages, being able to keep the translations quality at a good level.

Again, just throwing ideas...

[]'s

Rodrigo

[Pavel Alasheev]

Great idea!

I am one of those guys who contacted you about translating the whole site to another language (Russian in my case). Just yesterday i was re-reading a couple of your older articles and thought "Why doesn't Steve create a Russian version of the site, so that i can share it with my non-English speaking friends". Talk about synchronicities.

So if you decide to move forward with this idea, I'd be happy to have your site translated into Russian. I do not really care about whether it's going to generate income or not (maybe just enough to cover the costs). As far as coordinating such efforts, it could be done via this forum. Maybe you can post links to 'official' mirror sites in other languages, so that people who volunteer to translate something would go to these sites to see if the article has already been translated.

[blissfulpeace]

What an amazing post. It's actually reading my thoughts. I'm currently working on a relaxation software and for the past few days I had the dreadful fear of failure.

Then I remembered how I got the idea for the software in the first place. It came out of the blue, like it was given to me. Then it hit me... "The ego does nothing. It just puts into practice consciousness'es ideas!". This was the thought that kept repeating in my mind. Then there was no more fear of failure, only peace

Thank you Steve!

[geofones]

And here we have Jo Ito on explaining about the proliferation of different licences

[ericabiz]

Steve wrote: "It seems like I'd need a good bit of help to make that work."

Yeah, and that's been a strong challenge for you with this site...letting go a bit more and inviting help in the door. I think this is the Universe's pointed way of sending you in that direction...by giving you a task you can't possibly accomplish on your own. Or delegate to Erin.

-Erica

[Channing]

I would say make it some simple way that gives you the least amount of worry.

If it were me I would make some simple rule like there needs to be an attribution (or mention of you as the author) and then let it go.

[aruquon]

If it were my conscious self making the decision (and not my unconscious self), I think I would release it all under a Creative Commons license, and also create a central location (forum or wiki or whatever) on your web site for translators to discuss and publish translations, if they want to use it. You could use a volunteer moderation system like you have with this forum (if I understand correctly how this all works), so that your personal involvement could be basically none if you want. I'm sure that almost everyone would choose to use the central location to do translations, but I don't think there's any need to enforce that. I've wanted to do some translations of articles, but I don't have a ready and waiting place to publish them, so I would be happy to take advantage of a place on your site to publish them.

[bluelighth]

I'd say a variation on the creative commons - probably with attribution - would be best.

As for translation - a few things:
1) you could add a new section based on wiki-style technology, where you'd have a portal for different non-english languages. People who want to translate an article would then do it inside said portal, and it'd be directly linked to the original. Then, they should probably be allowed to use the translated content at least with the same freedom as your own english version of the content. This would also allow multiple people to translate into the same language without overlapping, since there would be a "central authority". And being part of your site, it could be more easily integrated with the rest of your content.
2) You could just create a directory of sorts, that would link to all translations of a specific article. If someone translates one of your articles, they'd go to your directory and post a link to the translation. Then you could easily add quality control before publishing the link, and it wouldn't all be hosted on your site.

Another thing - I may be interested in translating at least some of the content to hebrew, but that depends on how things work out over the next few weeks.

Cheers! and good luck!

[cacheborn]

There is an interesting typo in the article.

"They seemed to relax once I they realized I had no interest in raking them over the coals."

I guess the / is missing.

"They seemed to relax once I/they realized I had no interest in raking them over the coals."

[Sonnenblume]

Yes, look at copyleft licenses.

You could also use some adapted version of GNU's (The GNU Operating System) short article license:

Copyright © xxxx

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice, and the copyright notice, are preserved.

So the article would also be redistributable if it's on another site.

Additionally, you would add some things about translations - that may be the trickier part.

[Kenneth Bok]

From 'A Course in Miracles':

LESSON 268

Let all things be exactly as they are.

Let me not be Your critic, Lord, today, and judge against You. Let me not attempt to interfere with Your creation, and distort it into sickly forms. Let me be willing to withdraw my wishes from its unity, and thus to let it be as You created it. For thus will I be able, too, to recognize my Self as You created me. In Love was I created, and in Love will I remain forever.

What can frighten me, when I let all things be exactly as they are? Let not our sight be blasphemous today, nor let our ears attend to lying tongues. Only reality is free of pain. Only reality is free of loss. Only reality is wholly safe. And it is only this we seek today.

Just forgive, Steve. Don't fight with 'reality'. The universe will unfold as it should.

Ken

[Easterbunny]

I think totally letting go of copyright is the most effortless way to go about this.

What's the point of limiting some part of yourself in what it can do with the content you put out? Can you free that part of yourself by restricting it? Or do you free it and heal it by letting it find out for itself what is honorouble behaviour and what's not? Putting your trust in someone is a great way of showing them you believe in them - in that part of yourself.

And in giving other parts of yourself unrestricted permission to go and be creative with 'your' material, you might be happily surprised someday about what 'they' come up with!

Also read Leo Babauta's take on copyright; he released copyright on all his articles some time ago after diving in the subject and reading lots about it. He has some interesting things to say in that article.

[zetta]

Uhm, this is kind of obvious. Since you won't enforce any restrictions, just let go of it completly.

[Ben C]

It looks like you've already decided that you're not inspired (at this time) to take any more action against people who are using your work without permission. Because its their work too, and anyone using the work is only doing so because of the reality you are creating.

Now, since you are not in the mood to take action against people using your work (and since you know that the universre you're creating has people in it who are happy to take your work, no matter how you license it), what benefit would putting a licence on your work give you? The only benefit I see is that it is much like asking the universe for a favour - a request as to what you want to happen - an affirmation of your desires.

What is it you want to request? What do you want to give and make the universe? What has the most value?

It seems to me you want as many people as possible to benefit from your work. So you probably want to allow people to copy it and redistribute it. You also look like you want to allow people to translate your work (since the dividing line between modifying and translating is a fine one, you probably need to put up with the idea people can modify your work however they like... after all, if people modify your work in ways you don't like, subjectively, thats saying something about you - and giving you a new opportunity to improve yourself). In any case, you probably want the people who modify your work to also allow their new versions to be freely distributable, and freely modified also.

Now, I'm guessing here, but I don't see why you would be upset if someone else was to profit from distributing what you have... I'm not talking about someone taking money which would otherwise go to you, but someone gaining abundance through their own part in making your work available to the world.

But finally, I believe you believe you can help people through your writing. You can help people more than just by providing them with the article they've read (however translated, mutilated, distributed and profited from it may be). You write new articles, teach new lessons and hold workshops - all reasons why you want readers to know the source of the article. And this suggests to me that attribution is something you want, and something you think will add value to anybody who reads any of your articles.

So your affirmation - the licence you put at the bottom of each thing you create - should encourage people to distribute and translate or otherwise modify your work. It should allow them to use it commerically or noncommerically, because you appreciate the abundance it may bring into their lives. And it should require an attribution and link to your website, so that you can provide additional value to anybody who reads it.

This is looking like a creative commons "attribution, share alike" licence to me.

[Joachim]

Hey Steve,

some part of you is currently working on creating a social network focused on personal development (Conscious Growth Net | Connecting Growth Oriented People).

The idea behind this network is basically to connect growth oriented people and to create social support and a sense of community similar to the one we experienced at your/our CGW.

One idea that came up while discussing this (or was it while talking to myself? :P) was to publish content created by the members of the site in their joint endeavor to grow.

Translating and publishing some of your articles (or content directly derived from them), that resonate with the members, might be an interesting thing to integrate. I plan the site to be multilingual and to support easy content creation and translation anyways, so this shouldn’t be too big of a problem.

The site probably would also function as some sort of protection against duplicates and to coordinate efforts on a medium scale.

Cheers,
Joachim (I think at least)

[MartienTheRock]

Hi Steve,

Your copyright quest resonates with mine. Personally, I'm a big fan of the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC-BY-NC-SA for short). I use it for all the stuff I create.

Recently I developed the Serious Funny Money Game and I faced a similar desire. I also wanted an elegant way to cover commercial use of the material, so I set out with the following intentions for a Conditional Commercial license (hence cc-by-CC-sa):

• catalyse spreading of the work;
• development of a fair and sustainable financial revenue stream in the general interest, spirit and intention of the work and her community and contributors;
• fair financial compensation for anyone contributing to the spreading and development of the work;
• preventing unfair financial benefit (like free riding);
• spark innovations and extensions and incorporate them effectively in future versions of the work—evolvability;
• being able to work based on freedom, responsibility, trust and abundance; and
• guarantee agility, development velocity, coherence and consistency for the community at large.

So I took the CC-BY-NC-SA license, which is NC: Non-Commercial, and added a simple Conditional Commercial (CC) agreement.

You may use the work for commercial purposes provided that you:

• deposit a signed license at the maker, signed by you and a licensor (this will make you a licensor, too);
• transfer 30% of any direct or indirect revenue to the account of the licensor; and
• unconditionally enable any licensee to check and verify those revenues (open bookkeeping).

So any commercial licensee automatically becomes a licensor, obtaining the right to propagate the license.

You can vary the percentage of course.

A Dutch version is available on Aardbron » Licentie.

With respect to keeping track of translations, the TED Open Translations Project may be a good source of inspiration. Maybe you can even team up with them.

Thoughts?

[17seconds]

Maybe you can create new "sides" of your site like stevepavlina.it, stevepavlina.es and so. Then choose a volunter redactor for each language, he/she will approve the quality of the translation and send it on-line. Each language could have its community (maybe on the forum) where volunteers will inform each other about wich article are they translating, in order of avoid duplicates, focus the efforts and spread your message as soon as possible. One or two redactors in chief, could assign the articles to volunteers.

The idea is: multiplicate your impacte on the world but refering your "own" articles to your site, so everyone can know who is "the source" (get it?)
All the work would be done by volunteers, your only work would be choose the new "custodians" of your message who will manage the language teams.

And talking about synchronicities, today I woke up truly inspired. I dreamt that I was spreading love and compassion to a lots, a lots of people in a different way, yes, but the feeling was right). I felt good but I wondered "How the hell can I reach so many people?". Now I have my answer: "By translating Steve Pavlina articles, bl¨¨dy!" (In spanish, and maybe french).
You not only deserve our love and compassion, but our admiration and respect too.

[danijelg]

I would love to participate in the translation process. I can help with translating the texts to Serbian language. The idea of bringing the precious resources I've acquired from your writings closer to the people in my surroundings has been on my mind for some time now.

With respect to keeping track of translations, the TED Open Translations Project may be a good source of inspiration. Maybe you can even team up with them.

Yes, the TED Project was the first thing that popped into my mind too.

[Apollia]

Wow, I never expected this.

I hope it works out well for you, Steve.

I've been thinking for a while about doing something similar. Not sure when I first seriously thought about doing that, but I think it was a while before I pointed out in this thread that Leo Babauta, the author of Zen Habits, released the copyright on his Zen Habits posts: To Give, or Not to Give

(I should've responded more to that thread, but felt too shy and got distracted by other things. I'm not sure I'm going to get re-inspired to reply to that thread any time soon, even though I still haven't satisfactorily resolved my issues/limiting beliefs/inner blocks about receiving money).

Here's Leo Babauta's page about releasing the copyright on his Zen Habits posts: Open Source Blogging: Feel Free to Steal My Content | zen habits (I see someone else already posted that link, but, I'm reposting it here for convenience's sake.)


My approach with my own stuff (an approach which I'm not sure I'd really recommend to you or anyone else) would probably be to put it all in the public domain.

I've only done that with my software so far (basically because of agreeing a lot - though not entirely - with Why Software Should Be Free by Richard Stallman), but have been thinking about doing that with everything else, too, for similar reasons. (Maybe other people can vastly improve on what I created, etc.)

I wouldn't insist on attribution because I wouldn't want someone's horrid corruption of my work being too associated with me.

I also wouldn't want to feel like I have to do anything to police or monitor others' usage of my stuff to make sure they're following any guidelines. I would find that a really boring, tedious chore. I also would rather not restrict anyone else's creativity or freedom in any way.


Rather than extracting royalties from any usage of my stuff, my hope is that the people who use it/make derivative works/whatever will simply be grateful enough to voluntarily send me donations when they feel not only willing but eager, and are genuinely comfortably able to do so. (Or else buy something from me whenever I finally get around to creating some products).

I consider that hope kind of unrealistic and probably self-destructive, though, which is at least part of why even I have hesitated to put all of my released creations in the public domain, even though it's not like I'm making much money from any of them anyway.

(I've paid more to keep my website online since 2006 than I've made from anyone paying me donations, or buying the product I used to sell in Second Life. Maybe I'd be doing better by now if I didn't have huge misgivings about becoming well-known and then having to deal with vicious public criticism. Maybe I'd work on my website more if I wasn't actually afraid of getting too successful).


I suspect that releasing the copyright on your work could maybe work out better for someone like you than for someone like me, since you already have a very large and well-established audience which loves you, as well as a ton more content than me.

I think you'd probably get results more comparable to Leo Babauta's results than comparable to my results. Maybe you could ask him how it's working out for him.

I wonder if maybe you could live on even $1-apiece (or less) donations from your millions of visitors, if you encouraged people to send them.


Anyhow, I don't know how useful my post will be, since I'm so financially unsuccessful and clueless about how to make money, and made such horrid mistakes in my earlier youth as getting into debt, and originally never suspecting that banks and credit card companies would so flagrantly rip me off and ruin me financially with gigantic fees. If my family didn't support me, I think I'd probably be homeless.

But, I hope this post helps somehow.


Oddly enough, I was just recently thinking, like in the past few days, about how it's a pity that (if I recall correctly) people mostly aren't allowed to translate your work. I never expected that to change so soon.

Again, I hope everything works out well for you.

Apollia

[lja1228]

Steve,

Consider having a conversation with Marshall Goldsmith about this issue. He freely and openly says, "Use my work, however it works best for you". With his years of publishing experience, I would think he may have already considered and worked through the possibilities and issues. If nothing else, it might be helpful to just get his perspective.

You are an amazing guy. Thank you for all you do.

Lora Adrianse

[Tobias Zimpel]

That's a tough one - as well as a great one!

I believe that even if you perceive yourself as the medium or translator, you should be rewarded for the thousands of hours of work you put into creating that huge library of content.

So if I were you, I'd use a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License.

[Speedbump]

I am in the middle of reading your post, but I had to stop and comment after you talked about Bob Proctor's ghostwritten book: I am reading that book right now. Well, not literally right now.

And what is absolutely hilarious to me is that as I have read it, I have gotten tremendous value out of it, and over and over again I have thought, "Wow! Steve told me that already in his Cubicle article, and he mentioned this in his anti-job article, and..." you get it. But it never, ever occurred to me they just rewrote your stuff! I'm torn between and ROFL on this one, for gullible me and for brash Bob.

Anywho, I just had to tell you that. You are the one who put the bug in my brain to quit my job (I did!) and to do my own thing (I am!), so no wonder this book resonates with me.

You should be proud, Steve, that you wrote such a great book, eh? When I finish it, I'll put it next to your other book on my shelf.

Rachel