Uncopyright

To get right down to it, I completely release everything I write on this site into the public domain (unless otherwise noted). That’s the just of it. Do whatever you want with my essays and articles. Reprint them on your blog, print them out for use in your classroom, sell them in book form, rewrite them, whatever. I would ask that if you do any of this, please at least give me credit and throw a link back to here, but y’know, your call.  If you want to know more details on the why of this, read on.

In 1940 Woody Guthrie wrote his most famous song, “This Land is Your Land”, something of a protest song. Of it he said:

“This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin’ it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don’t give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that’s all we wanted to do.”

And that pretty much sums up my thoughts. I wanted to write the things on here and that’s about all. Profit, that great ghost of capitalism, might be nice, but it’s not the real intention here. I just want to share my thoughts, ideas, and words, and I think that can better be accomplished by making my work free instead of restricting it with a copyright, hoping that one day I can get a monetary profit off of it. 

Instead of trying to explain my thoughts better, let me link to the main inspiration for this (tho there were others). Go read what Leo of ZenHabits has to say on the issue. This guy is way more successful that I could ever hope, blogging full time and making a handsome living from it, and he still gives it away. That takes balls.

To sum up: Everything free. Print out and give away. Please give credit tho. Nothing else to see here, move on.

 

(after thought–wow, only 28 years? How things have changed, eh? It’s something like life plus 90 years now, or forever minus a day according to the late Sonny Bono)