RADICALCROSSSTITCH Seriously Seditious Stitching

It’s been a YEAR in the making (and I’m not exaggerating..) but finally folks, it’s Episode 10 of the Craft Cartel podcast.

This episode, we do something quite different and check out some of the best the world of Creative Commons music has to offer.  So grab your latest craft project, kick back and enjoy the show.

I decided to let the music speak for itself and leave the ranting to the writing, so what follows is the ideas behind this podcast.  I’m very much interested to hear what others think on these issues.

xox
Rayna

And as always we’d love to hear from you, comment below or drop us a line. And don’t forget to check out the archive if you’re new round here.

 

 Craft Cartel Podcast Episode 10 10.04 Creative Commons for Crafters: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (631)

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OK here’s the spiel!

The idea behind Creative Commons or as it is otherwise known as ‘copyleft’ was about trying to find a way for creators of content to protect their work that wasn’t as rigid as the copyright system.  The copyright system is very much geared around stopping people from using your ideas.  Yet there were tons of creative people out there who did want people to use their ideas, they just wanted to be able to put some conditions on the use.  CC is based on the understanding that knowledge isn’t created in a vacuum.  As artists, creators, designers, engineers etc, our knowledge is built on and informed by centuries of knowledge.  The CC movement uses the slogan “standing on the shoulders of giants” which acknowledges that all the creativity, intelligence, technology and risk taking that exists in our world wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for sharing and collaboration.

The notion of copyright, or to claim an idea as something which is exclusively owned, is a very modern phenomenon and for many creators is simply incompatible with the idea that creativity is a community based activity.

The copyleft movement arose out of the free software movement as a response to the hyper patenting that was happening by certain sectors of the software industry (yes, looking at you Mr Gates).  A lot of the stuff that was being patented was not being patented by the person who invented the software.  As most of the ideas were generated by communities of engineers and mathematicians.  The patents were often being granted to the person who applied first.

Software is effectively a pile of equations.  Technically, you’re not supposed to be able to patent a mathematical equation (or nature for that matter, but that’s not stopped Monsanto who want to ‘own’ the food we eat).  But somehow certain people were able to convince the American Patent Office that they should grant patents to software.  And as anyone in the Open Source movement will tell you, this is why proprietary software is so expensive and often inferior to the community created software alternatives eg Firefox (pattern here!).

The same problem applies to the music industry.  While people have been making music and sharing that music for millennia, it has only been recently that the concept of ownership has been applied to music.  The justification for this is of course to ensure that musicians can make an income out of their creativity. But we all know this is rarely the case.  Because the musicians themselves rarely own the copyrights over their music.  It is the recording companies, or as is often the case with very popular songs, private individuals.  Music is not seen as a part of our living culture, rather a commodity that can be bought and sold.  This approach to music creation means it’s about ‘investing’ in the music that will create the most profit for the holder of the rights, not creating awesome music.  This is the main reason there is so much crap music on our airways.

With the introduction of the internet and all the wonderful tools modern technology has to offer it is now totally possible for a musician to make, produce and distribute their own music. It’s still hard work and the profits are still hard to come by, but if we as consumers make an effort to be more conscious about how we buy our music, we could make this chart look a lot nicer for musicians.

(via information is beautiful)

And of course this line of thinking brings me to talk about craft.

While I think it is wonderful that there are so many people out there making, buying and selling craft, I don’t think it’s so wonderful that so many people are adding copyright licenses to their work.  Sadly, I think too many people are doing this because it’s what everyone else does, not because they’ve really thought about it.

Copyright as a way of protecting your work is a very rigid system, and doesn’t allow much flexibility for other people to share, and build upon, your ideas.  And arguably copyright is not that useful a tool if someone does rip off your ideas.

The list of examples of big companies ripping off indie designers is probably 10 times longer than both of my arms combined.  And most of those designers would have a copyright on their work.  But did it do any good stopping them being ripped off?  Clearly not.  So why is it useful?  Well, if you do decide to take someone to court over a copyright violation it is of course helpful to have copyright in the first place.  But you also need to have the legal funds and sadly not many of us have massive bank balances.

What has been more effective recently is the use of the internet in the naming and shaming of copyright violations.  Being named and shamed by big name websites can be enough for violators to pull the offending products.  But of course this doesn’t cover lost income.  But certainly if enough of us decide to boycott companies that rip off indie designers, they’ll certainly lose some.

But back to Creative Commons, if we, as indie designers and makers use Creative Commons licenses we still retain the ability to legally protect our work.  CC licenses are based on copyright, the difference is

“Creative Commons licenses give you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights—such as the right of others to copy your work, make derivative works or adaptations of your work, to distribute your work and/or make money from your work. They do not give you the ability to restrict anything that is otherwise permitted by exceptions or limitations to copyright—including, importantly, fair use or fair dealing—nor do they give you the ability to control anything that is not protected by copyright law, such as facts and ideas.” (source)

This means if someone uses some of your work to inspire some of theirs they have to source you as opposed to a copyright license where they’d have to pretend they’d never heard of you.  Which is a bit sad really.  Because wouldn’t you rather hear about the work you’re inspiring? And more importantly, wouldn’t you like your customers to hear about it too?

So, as a cross stitch pattern designer, I put a Creative Commons license on all of my work.  My license says you can’t re-sell my ideas but you can change them so long as you share them with the public under a similar license.  This means you can buy my pattern and share it with your stitching group (something most cross stitch designers HATE).  I also allow people to sell finished pieces that result from the sale of my patterns so long as they’re hand stitched and they acknowledge me as the designer.  If I had a simple copyright on my patterns, people wouldn’t technically be able to do that.

On a philosophical level, CC licenses allow me to proudly put my work into a community based sphere while still enabling myself to earn a (very) small income from my work.  I get the best of both worlds because I can design, make and sell like any other crafter but I also get to develop creative relationships with my customers – whom I can now treat as friends and colleagues.

As you can see CC enables non-heirarchical relationships.  And I reckon that’s what craft is all about, don’t you?

Copyright is something worth paying attention to if you like to stitch and sell things out of books (or write books for that matter).  I’ve seen tons of people that sell stitched pieces from a popular pattern books.  I’m pretty sure in most cases the author doesn’t mind but if one day their publisher decided they did mind (since it’s usually the publisher that holds the copyright), it would be within their legal rights to sue all of those makers for damages.  That would be both sad for the makers and the authors.

The other big issue that copyright and craft raises of course is if we have the right to copyright craft.

Craft is part of our culture.  And the massive body of ideas, skills, designs and techniques that make up what we call ‘craft’ is the product of millennia of practitioners sharing their work.  It is in fact, our cultural commons.  We all own it, so who says some of us have the right do draw a fence around some of it and call it ours and then charge others for the right to use it?

I would argue we most certainy don’t.  But it is happening, and it’s not just techniques, styles and designs that are being copyrighted, patented and trademarked, but even very common terms and sayings within craft practise including this most famous example.

I hope the craft community can have more discussions around these issues so we can educate ourselves about what this all means.  And more importantly, make some decision about how we, as a community, want to treat and protect the knowledge that we, as a community, hold and own.

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More resources:

creativecommons.org
archive.org
freemusicarchive.org
Phlow Magazine
aaahh records
Beep! Beep! Back up the truck

Track listing:

1. Princess Melodiae – Aleksi Virta (…Meets Torsi)
2. The Confrontation – Crookram (Through Windows)
3. Bag of Nothingness – Comfort Fit (Bag of Nothingness)
4. Les Mains Sales – Dustmotes (Beats for the Subverted)
5. Grizzly – The Banjo Consortium (Fall Is For Lovers)
6. Bracken Bed – Malty Media (Nivel Del Mar – Sounds for Soulsurfers)
7. A Heart That Beats No More – Ryan Harvey (Rise Like Lions)
8. Rise Like Lions – Brenna Sahatjian (Rise Like Lions)
9. Pirates – Entertainment For The Braindead (Roadkill)
10. Treehouse Lullaby – The Wind Whistles (Animals Are People Too)
11. Making Your Own Stuff – The Wind Whistles (Animals Are People Too)
12. Resolutions – Entertainment For The Braindead (Hydrophobia)
13. Nightlighter – Big Blood (Big Blood & the Bleeding Hearts)
14. Childhood Friend – Emilie Lund (Emilie Lund EP)
15. That I Love You – Het Gloren (Acrobaat)
16. Barefoot Girl - Twizzle ((Nivel Del Mar – Sounds for Soulsurfers)
17. Satisfied Mind – My Bubba & Mi (How It’s Done In Italy)
18. Through Windows – Crookram (Through Windows)

Enjoy
xox