On July 16th I gave at talk at H.O.P.E. (Hackers On Planet Earth) called “Sita Sings the Blues: a Free Culture Success Story.” 9 Minutes of excerpts are below, in which I discuss why I insisted on authentic songs, what is and is not property, how software is culture, the difference between Share Alike (copyleft) and other Creative Commons licenses, why I paid to legally license the old songs, how noncommercial copyright infringement is still illegal, legal costs, benefits of audience sharing & decentralized distribution, the Sita Sings the Blues Merchandise Empire (sitasingstheblues.com/store), open-licensed merch, audience goodwill, how fans support artists, rivalrous vs. non-rivalrous goods, the Creator Endorsed Mark, migrating Flash files to open formats, gift income, commerce without monopolies, why I encourage legal sharing, and more.
For those with longer attention spans, you can watch the entire unedited hour-long talk on vimeo. It includes even more topics like Minute Memes, cultural lineages, combining vs. originating, many Ramayanas, our impoverished Public Domain, understanding Free Culture, Content vs. Containers, and a more detailed income breakdown of the Sita Free Distribution Project.
cross-posted from Techdirt.com.