Say It With A Strip: Mimi & Eunice on Copyright

We’ve got a new tool for questioning copyright, and we hope you’ll use it too.

Our Artist-in-Residence, Nina Paley, recently started her new online comic strip Mimi & Eunice. Mimi & Eunice is about a lot of things, but one of them is copyright — how it gets between artists and their audiences on the Internet, how it can stifle creativity, how it’s increasingly being used as part of broader censorship efforts, etc.

The strips themselves are, of course, released under a free license, and display a fully Internet-compatible copying notice:

♥ Copying is an act of love. Please copy & share.

Each of the strips on copyright is designed to be a little comment bomb that you can drop into a post or a discussion to help make a point. People have already started doing so, for example at Techdirt and other places, and it’s been great watching them spring up around the Internet. We invite you to join in! Some things are just easier to say with a strip:

…and there are many more to browse over at the Mimi and Eunice home site. Use them as you see fit. Each strip comes with clear embed instructions, so it’s easy to include in a web page or an online comment.

Like the Minute Memes, they are rhetorical tools, meant to help make familiar points more memorable. There are certainly times and places where it’s appropriate to point out, calmly and rationally, how copyright term extensions make no logical sense and are a theft from the public domain — but there are also times where it’s just better said with a strip:

A great way to enjoy the comics, and support the artist, is to buy a (signed!) copy of the first book, Misinformation Wants to be Free:

Far be it from us to encourage the crass commercialism of what is to many still a religious season, but if you are for some reason buying gifts this time of year, Misinformation Wants to be Free is an eminently reasonable $20 US, and is sure to be a delightful surprise to discerning readers. The strips are not only about copyright:

Enjoy — and spread the word!