Obama Embraces Creative Commons
Written by Ben Jones on December 02, 2008US President-Elect Barack Obama is a man with a message, and according to the speeches made during his campaign, that message is ‘Change’. One of those changes has been somewhat of a snub to the creative industries and their lobby groups – the embracing of Creative Commons licensing.
In some ways, Obama is an enigma. His meteoric rise to win the presidency from almost complete obscurity several years ago is, of course, the very basis of the ‘American Dream’. Young for a president (or even a senator), while promising ‘Change’, he has a lot to prove to the younger voters that propelled him into Executive office.
However, with the decision to choose Joe Biden as VP, many worried that with his ties to copyright lobby groups, he would influence things to further increase the reach of already-draconian laws. Despite this, he was endorsed by both Lawrence Lessig, and the US Pirate Party, with the former’s wife even campaigning for him.
After his election he wasted little time in establishing a ‘transition’ website at change.gov. However, to the dismay of some, the copyright notices were as draconian as ever. That has all changed now, though, as the site embraces Creative Commons, opting for CC-BY. While Obama is not exactly a stranger to Creative Commons licensing – his flickr photos are under a CC BY-NC-SA license – it is no small step to go from photo album to entire website.
What does this mean for copyright? Well, as Creative Commons themselves point out in their blog, the group behind change.gov is not a part of the government – yet. It’s a non-profit organization, so could (and did) fill the site with copyright notices. Yet, that a Creative Commons license has been embraced by the President-Elect means good things. Most importantly, that the President has knowledge of less-restrictive copyright methods, and first-hand experience that not only do they work, but that the sky doesn’t fall down when they are used, cannot hurt. That the license chosen was, in Lessig’s words, the ‘freest license’ is more encouraging still.
One can only hope that when the likes of the RIAA and MPAA come to talk about further strengthening copyright, he turns around and says, “I’ve been using these great CC licenses, have you heard of them?” Regardless, it’s a great boost to Creative Commons, as they prepare to celebrate their sixth birthday.
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33 Responses
I like obama, but i bet £1million that nothings gonna change. Just wait till he gets into the white house and then the lobbying will really start.
I’d love to be wrong but just because the U.S is going to have a new president doesn’t mean anything radical will happen with copyright…
What is with the unclosed italics tag?
In any case, it is a step forward, but I do not think that anybody prominent will push for the needed change in legislation as of yet.
However, it still must be remembered that Obama is a president, not a private citizen, and this has its disadvantages. The most obvious of them is that he is bound to his popularity as president. He cannot do what is most necessary, and that is to advocate a change in the law of copyright. What is more important is a prominent person who advocates a change in copyright law.
Roze
http://www.10ch.org/
an oversight on the tagging caused the unclosed tag. Thats now been fixed.
Too early to call it, now is the time to place bets… around 14 months from now we _should_ be a bit wiser.
The thing is everyone always hopes the politicians will keep their promises once they win their office, but name one who has kept all his promises…
Right now only bask in the thoughts that its not stone cold Billary or dropping-babies-everywhere, very doable but damaged; Palin up there :)
Sorry but I dont agree.
I know i know, you guys are gonna flame me. but the way I see it, just because SOMEONE put a CC license on his website hardly makes him an advocate of CC.
I know, im shooting in the dark, but so are you.. no one really knows the truth, even this article is pipe dream.
He could have this, and then turn right around and help copyright holders.
Obama exploits existing technology but contributes nothing — using cc is just a way to appear to embrace it while releasing information that would already be in the public domain under the FOIA as free information. Obama is a leecher — I have never seen an example (but prove me wrong if I am wrong) of Obama doing anything new or innovative — he mostly or entirely just exploits existing, especially free, technology while giving nothing back. Sure, this may be better than any previous alternative!
Indeed he have to be popular. He cannot do anything that a large amount of people dont like.
Thats kind of a problem, you always have to keep everyone happy. He can not just remove the copyright law if you know what I mean. I think youre expecting too much from one man.
@pink panther
“Exploiting” free technology also means “exploiting” open standards in many cases.
Most of the people who use firefox (or opera or whatever) are only taking advantage of a free resource, but because they are, many more websites now have been designed to be standards compliant.
Still a nigger either way…
Well, I think we can agree it’s better than having Bush as president? Thank goodness it’s almost over.
“Obama doing anything new or innovative — he mostly or entirely just exploits existing, especially free, technology while giving nothing back.”
————————————–
sounds like 99.9% of file sharers.
All i can say is GObama!!!
Visit P2P Tech Time
http://www.p2ptechtime.com
Hello torrentfreak.com,
I would like to extend my greetings to all pirates and non pirates out there reading this. I believe if we come together we can find some common ground in this heated copyright battle that has been going on since file shearing was made possible. I believe that if lobbyist groups that are pro and anti piracy would agree on fair and easy distribution methods instead of backstabbing each other left and right it would benefit both the consumer and artists respectively.
Thank you for voting for me, and I hope with your support we can lead this great nation of ours into a brighter future for our kids and family’s.
http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
“I believe that if lobbyist groups that are pro and anti piracy would agree on fair and easy distribution methods instead of backstabbing each other left and right it would benefit both the consumer and artists respectively.”
You need proofreading in that sentence to have chance of fooling the foolish.
Lol, you even spelt your name wrong Mr P.E. Its Barack u idiot!
OMG! is that really Obama!?
that Mr. nigger president to you a$$hole
To pink panther (#6):
The number of people creating versus the number of people enjoying is always going to be skewed. Not everyone is a software developer or networking specialist (and not every one of those creates instead of utilize), and I’d hardly expect a senator or House representative to be one.
At any rate, using a product or service is similar to supporting it (and the market ideology is that you promote ideas or services by ‘voting’ with your dollars, but in this case it’s a matter of using as ‘voting’).
Biden is a tool but at least he is not a fool…
Anyone who believes in Obama’s “change” is a fool. Appointing criminals and traitors to positions of power is the only change you’re going to get. Same car, different paint job.
@2
seriously dude, “a president can’t make unpopular decisions”.
bush has been in office for 2 terms, and he has made a littany of unpopular(and bad) decisions.
in fact, i dare you to point to a single popular decision he has made
(yes i know that the majority was pro-iraq-war at the time, but only a few years later, within his term this turned out to be an unpopular decision)
but that begs the question, why would you think copyright reforms would be unpopular?
Most people are consumers, a very large majority in fact, if he strenghens the consumer and weakens the industry why would the majority(the consumers) hate him?
remember he has harnessed the awsome power of the Internet to raise the monye for his campaign, instead of relying on the industry for contributions.
That means he owes them nothing, and us everything.
GOBAMA!
As much as we would love to see some proof that Obama will be a friend to net neutrality/file sharing, his site’s shift to Creative Commons is a very long way from being hard evidence as to his true thoughts on the subject. Most likely, he wasn’t even involved/wasn’t even aware of the change.
obama = u$a mitterand = nothing will change, as we can see in the choice of his goverment
Great post! Gives hope.. Thanks Ben!
Because when a persident has his website changed that gives us hope..
theres no end to how pathetic you people are.
OMG OBAMA is our god, hes gonna fix everything.
Lets see.. every president so far has managed to fix nothing.. only make things worst.. yet your stupid enough to think this time will be any different.
OH but you gotta vote! Vote for more corruption? No thanks, enjoy your crumbling country, il be in my little world untill they come to kill me.
@5 bleh, 6 pink panther
I agree with the fact that this hardly signifies that they support CC. They are just using it.
Moreover, CC is nice and all… but what does it entail for all the things that are copyrighted and not under CC? Surely the fact that they are not under CC is a problem. Everything should be under CC, after all – and the usage of CC in no way entails that everybody else should use CC as well.
Roze
The previous pres appointed criminals and traitors too so that won’t be “the change.” Black people have always been putting bling on something a white guy did and reselling it at higher cost to their own people like with clothes(FUBU), sneakers, and music. For example,a white guy invented rap in the vaudeville era.
CC respects copyright. which is a good thing. more copyright! artists deserve it…
The problem with changing copyright is that obama must go through congress, which of course means he needs enough votes to get the bill through. And you can be sure the copyright industry will be lobbying all senators and calling in markers. And as we all know, most senators have a proclivity for bribes.
“Appointing criminals and traitors to positions of power is the only change you’re going to get. ”
Change?
No, dear. Appointing criminals and traitors to positions of power would be more of the same.
I think you’re confused about what the word “change” means, or maybe you’ve been living under a rock for the last… What, 100 or so years of Presidential history?
“Anyone who believes in Obama’s “change” is a fool. Appointing criminals and traitors to positions of power is the only change you’re going to get. Same car, different paint job.” – ’nuff said.
Have fun in the “civilian national security force” (i.e. a draft), dumbfucks.
In addition to CC, we might want to worry ourselves with the “nigger” comments on this board. Now there’s a reflection of the world we live.
ooo, ur so politically correct, go save rabits.
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