Creative Commons (CC) licenses have allowed a new generation of artists, programmers, and muscians to publish content in a unique way--making it legal for your fans to play with content that you produced.
The CC license prevents anybody from profiting from your work of art, while allowing you to dictate how your fans can play with your content. It's all about community and interactivity, an alternative to old media copyright laws.
How can writers get involved? The novelist Nick Mamatas just posted a long Internet conversation about how to publish his novel Move Under Ground with a CC license.
The conversation included web luminaries and novelists like John Scalzi and Charles Stross. Read the post, and be sure to check out the comments section for more. Check it out...
"So as my project for this class I've decided to release Move Under Ground to the Internet under a Creative Commons license. I'll track the results, such as they might end up being (sales? links? mentions amongst the 'net chatterati?) and hand it in at the end of the term. I'm not a huge believer in CC as a rrrrrrevolutionary thingamajig, but it seems to be clever marketing and it sure beats writing a term paper."
Once again, the heating crisis has slowed my posting output for the day. I'll be back online tomorrow.
