For me the most exciting part of this derivative works idea is the translation aspect. Recently, I was contacted by a woman who wanted to translate a book I had written into Russian. I have no desire to try to profit from such an arrangement — if she is willing to freely translate my book into Russian, great! I would love for Russian speakers to benefit from those ideas and download a free copy of the book in Russian.

I look forward to watching the ways that the Internet allows deriviative works to be made and spread.

I believe that spreading derivatives will create more amazing stories of openness.

On March 25, 2004, Lawrence Lessig released his book Free Culture with a Creative Commons license that allowed people to access the digital PDF version on the Internet for free. The license also allowed people to legally make derivatives of the work (Free Culture, 2004). The next day the Reverend A.K.M. Adam made a blog post inviting others to join him in creating a free audio version of Free Culture (Adam, 2004). Within two days, “most of the book was available as MP3 downloads” (IT Conversations, 2004).

In a world in which copyright often restricts people’s ability to create derivatives, how is it possible that 72 hours after a book was released that a free audio version was been made available? In the case of Free Culture, it was a combination of legal permission, Internet technology and willing remixers that allowed the audio version to be created.

I believe that increasing access to information is extremely important, and it’s easy to see how the transformation from PDF to MP3 could easily increase access to the work. And it didn’t cost Lessig or his publishers a dime…

But copyright blocks most deriviatives; Creative Commons on the hand, lets authors/publishers allow for derivatives if they so choose.

Some authors believe that by allowing derivative works to be created that they will extend the impact of their books. For example, in a personal email James Boyle (The Public Domain, among others), wrote “Scholars have a professional responsibility to make their works as widely available, without price barriers, as is possible.” In addition to this moral reasoning, he said that because of open licensing, “I reach new audiences that I couldn’t have imagined.”

I believe that allowing derivatives can extend the reach of a work. For example, Lawrence Lessig of Stanford University published his book Free Culture in 2004. Lessig used a Creative Commons license to allow other to create derivative works. As a results it has been translated into seven different languages, audio versions are freely available, and it has been put into sixteen different file formats (Free Culture Derivatives/Remixes, n.d.). All of these translations and format changes are freely available for others to download. Allowing others to create derivatives Free Culture vastly expanded its reach.

Right now I’m interested in the movationas individuals have for creating derivatives such as those done for Free Culture. Why do people to create translations, audio versions and make file format changes of materials that have Creative Commons licenses?

I have found many for works by Cory Doctorow, Larry Lessig, and Yochai Benkler, as well as some for works by James Boyle and Jonathan Zittrain. Are you aware of other situations in which authors have allowed derivative works and had people take them up on the offer? I would love to hear about them!