Open Content, Sharing and Copyright

Some of you may have noticed that there is a copyright notice at the bottom of this page... but at the same time, of course this page, and all the other pages at this blog are on the open Internet and there's also a full RSS feed for all the posts. In short, I believe in open content, but I am also someone who likes to keep the copyright for my work - even if I do then give that work away for free.

I'll admit that this is something I am torn about, especially became I am an avid user of Creative-Commons-licensed images at Flickr, and I am indeed very grateful to the photographers who share their work there. At the same time, the bind I am in is one that results from my lack of job security. I teach at the University of Oklahoma, but I'm just an instructor there, with a tenuous year-to-year contrast. I don't have tenure and am not eligible for tenure. I make enough (barely enough) to live on, and as long as I have that job, I am glad to give away my work for free. At the same time, it is easy for me to imagine the day when I might lose that job, and I might have to reinvent myself as a freelance online educator and author, finding ways to make a living from what is now my hobby.

So, for people who are surprised to find the copyright notice on this blog, please understand that it is like an umbrella I am carrying in case it rains (i.e. in case I lose my job at the University of Oklahoma)... and I'm hoping that perhaps it will have the magic power that umbrellas sometimes do possess: you carry the umbrella and, lo and behold, it does not rain!