I’m wondering about what’s up with the guys over at Unshelved regarding Creative Commons. I wasn’t going to blog about his until something happened. Here’s the story:
Yesterday there was a post on the Unshelved blog in which Bill talked about giving permission to use Unshelved strips to promote your library. Great idea I thought. This morning I went to re-read that post and something seemed different. I though he’d listed some specific things you needed to do in order to use their comics which sounded a lot like a NC-BY-ND CC license and that they were aware of this so don’t e-mail them about it. But today here’s what I read:
..So here’s our offer. We’ve got over two thousand strips about libraries and the things they go on there. Please use them to promote your library, school, or other reading-friendly cause. If you have questions about usage, or if you need a high-resolution version suitable for printing, just mail us.
Wait, where’s the specifics? Where’s the mention of Creative Commons? I did have a rough night’s sleep last night. Did I dream it? Seems not. Here’s what I found via the Google cache:
…So here’s our offer. We’ve got over two thousand strips about libraries and the things they go on there. If you’d like to use some of them for noncommercial purposes, please do. Just use them intact, without alteration, attribute them to us, and show our URL and the correct copyright. If you have questions about usage, or if you need a high-resolution version, just mail us.
…P.S. To forestall a gazillion emails I will say that I am well aware of Creative Commons, and we are thinking (read: arguing) about it.
So, what’s my point? There are two actually. First, guys, please make the plunge into the world of Creative Commons. My guess is that one of you likes the idea and the other doesn’t. How about blogging about the pros and cons and get some outside opinions from the library world. Heck, many of us are reposting your strips on our blogs anyway. How about making it officially allowable and support the CC movement at the same time.
Second, as I warn my students in my blogging workshops, if you have second thoughts about something you wrote in a blog post, don’t go back and remove it like it never happened. Write a follow-up post and clarify your position. Otherwise someone’s going to notice and point it out since nothing on the Net ever actually gets deleted.
About Michael
Interesting. I never noticed the discrepancy because I read the blog in google reader, and it gave me the original version this morning, long after they’d … revised the content.
Focusing on the RSS/Reader issue, I read it in Bloglines last night, clicked keep new, and when I went back to it this morning Bloglines was showing me the new version. Otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed. It’s interesting how the two readers treated the revised content differently.