Copyright, huh, what is it good for?
I’ve finally got round to sorting out a Creative Commons License for this blog (see the bottom of every page for details). I kept putting it off out of a combination of laziness and false modesty (why would anyone want to use my work in any way that isn’t covered by fair use?). I don’t know whether it’s going to make any difference in practice, but at least it demonstrates my commitment to Open Access, and my dissatisfaction with existing copyright law. There seems to be increasing dissent about copyright. I’ve just discovered (like Columbus: it didn’t exist until I’d read it!) CopyrightWatch.ca: a Canadian blog devoted to exposing myths about copyright and fighting for wider access to historical material. I’ve been trying to write about my thoughts on copyright in more detail, but it keeps coming out as incoherent rubbish so I’m just going to make an unsupported assertion:
Copyright serves no useful purpose for historians and is detrimental to the study of history.
Make of that what you will.
My next post will be the 46th History Carnival on Monday 15th January. I’ve had lots of good submissions, but there’s always room for more. Use the submission form, or e-mail me at hc46@4-lom.com, but try to get them in by Sunday as I want to compile the carnival ahead of time and post it at midnight if possible. And a quick recap of the rules:
No polemic on current affairs without substantial historical content.
No posts published before the last History Carnival (15th December 2006).
No multiple submissions of the same blog by the same person. If you submit more than one post from the same blog written by the same author, I will only pick one of them. Same blog different authors is fine, as is same author different blogs.
No folk etymology.
Apart from that, anything historical goes. You don’t have to be an academic or a well known blogger to contribute, and you can nominate other people as well as yourself.
