About a week ago, I attended a presentation at SFU on "Rights and Contracts in the Digital Age." (I have to mention here that I attended this presentation on a sunny Friday night at 5pm -- I do expect congratulations for that.)
I thought I was going to die of boredom during the first presentation. Although it turned out to offer one or two good nuggets of information, Karen Gilmore's session on "Contract Issues in the Digital Age" consisted of her talking through a two-page handout containing various legal clauses. Not exactly my bag. I couldn't even look out the window longingly because we were in a sealed room. I satisfied myself with making a list of home renovation projects I'd like to undertake if I ever found the time. Incidentally, if anyone knows anything about bathroom renovations, let me know.
I was there in the first place to gather information, really, about whether what we're doing in online magazine publishing is on the up-and-up, and how to ensure that we stay on the right side of the law, and on the right side of our authors.
Turns out that we're OK. Hoorah!
The big bonus of attending the session was learning more from a fellow named Andy Kaplan about Creative Commons: a fascinating oasis for me within the dullest of dull topics and justification for missing out on early Friday afternoon sunlight. Creative Commons is all about letting artists reserve 'some rights' on their work rather than going for the whole shebang (the traditional 'All Rights Reserved'), and thereby preventing anyone else from having any fun whatsoever with it. The concept seems to be born from the entire idea of remixing and mashing which is a grounding principle of the whole Web 2.0 or whatever you want to call it movement.
In short, an artist can now, under Creative Commons, choose what to secure copyright on, and clarify -- legally -- exactly how other people can use their work. Just one example of a Creative Commons license would be this: Non-commercial, requires attribution, and share-alike. What that means is that: the work can't be used to make money; if anyone else uses it they need to reveal who the original author was; and yes, it can be used for re-mixing or mashing AS LONG AS the new work that results is also licensed under the share-alike terms of Creative Commons, too. Pretty nerdily cool.
In other news
I attended a half-day of the Vision marketing conference here in Vancouver last Friday (another one I wasn't super-wild about attending but still determined to learn something from) and was absolutely gobsmacked by the presentation of Kevin Karroll -- an absolutely lovely, inspiring guy who anyone could learn from when it comes to public speaking. Really incredible stuff. His message was a simple one: nurture your creativity, be passionate about what you do, and remember how to play. "What is your red rubber ball," he asked. "What is it that you want to jump out of bed and chase every morning?"
Good questions indeed.
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