I promised to write about how I started to understand the power of the Free Culture License and why we should use it. But somehow lately I am always too busy to sit down and write about this important topic. The good news is, I actually already did!
I wrote quite a few pitches for the One Spark Berlin Crowdfunding Festival and one of the first, was mostly about this topic. So I will share it with you:
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Hi, Thanks so much for coming and
giving me a chance to talk to you.
Since we are at a crowdfunding festival
you probably already know that collaborating and making something
happen together feels awesome. But what about sharing?
I love creative commons, but until
recently I never used a Free Culture License.
Because even if you choose “share
alike” you are still granting the rights for commercial use.
If I share something for free, and
somebody else takes it to make money, and doesn't share that money
with me.... well, that somehow just doesn't feel right.
So what changed my mind?
Why am I here wanting you to get you as
excited as I am about the free Culture License?
There are so many women, who have done
incredible things, yet most of us have never heard of them. I really wanted to help change that and started to share free
coloring pages about these women, but I still checked “no commercial use
allowed”.
But then at some point it hit me:
Here was a cause that, if someone took
my free stuff and made money with it, that would make me happy. I
would love that!
Why? Because it would help change the
world in a way I want it to.
I wouldn't feel like somebody is taking
advantage of me. I would feel like we are collaborating on a story
together. A story I really want to be told.
With my project 'Amazing Women of
History' I want to help people understand & use the power of
collaborative art and storytelling to change how we think about
gender.
We don't have to wait for Hollywood or
the Game Industry to tell the stories we want to hear.
The free culture license and the web
make it possible to create these stories together.
For example I would love to see a video
game featuring Rosalind Franklin jumping the hurdles of sexism and
finally winning the recognition she deserves.
The problem is, I don't have the skills
to make this game. But maybe you do?
What I can do, is making Rosalind's
animated character, a game sprite, that could inspire you to do the
coding. Just because it's fun, and we both care about her.
And yes, somebody could take my artwork, and tell a story I am not happy to hear.
And yes, somebody could take my artwork, and tell a story I am not happy to hear.
But would that matter? At least she
would be out there, seen and talked about.
And if it got really rough, I am sure
somebody else would respond to it, with a different story.
The more stories the better. Because we
all understand the world through stories, and the more diverse
stories are out there, the better chance we have to understand each
other.
Emily Best said:
"the media is affecting our
ability to imagine what we can become"
We now have the tools to shape that
media and imagine future together.
I hope I made you curious to visit me
outside. There is so much more I'd like to talk to you about.
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So that was my pitch, and I hope it makes my reasons a bit clearer, why I believe in the power of collaborative art and storytelling.
(I didn't use this pitch, because people told me it's too weak in explaining what my actual project is about, and why and what for we seek funding. But I still like it better, because I think it expresses much more why I am so passionate about the idea to create a community that uses the the free culture license to tell the stories we want to hear and see - but three minutes was the pitch limit, that's very short and decisions had to be made - you can check out the pitch I actually used and how it went here).
I also hope it makes you think about what other causes there are in your life, that would make you feel the same way about sharing and collaborating to create something bigger together. The free culture license is an incredible tool, we just have to start to use it together.
By the way, the Emily Best quote is from a great talk about #theconf I watched:
Emily Best: The Matrix Intro & The Matrix Summary
It's about how we can use what we learn at conferences together. It's really good.
Till soon, stay tuned for Rosalind Franklin's free game sprites for all your Remix needs!
I really wish the game I dream of, one day will be made.
Amazing Woman of History by Céline Keller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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