Creative Commons launched its first two products today: machine-readable copyright licenses and Founders Copyright.

Read about it in Wired, Boing Boing, and LawMeme.

Says my Corante colleague Arnold Kling, who disagrees with the whole idea:

The theory behind Creative Commons is that what is broken is copyright law. Instead, I believe that what is broken are some traditional business models.

Says I: The Internet is not just a business model (Doc Searls and Eric Norlin have been kickin’ the tires on this notion lately). In order to have true collective creativity, we’re going to also need thoughts and ideas in the mix that are either not ready to be sold or have no traditional “value,” or at least not enough of it to fuel a business model. We will also need thoughts and ideas in the mix by people who are not in the business of selling their work but can benefit in lots of ways from having it made available as long as they are credited for their ideas.

More on Creative Commons: The first adopter of the Founders' Copyright is O'Reilly Associates, and this is as good a time for you to go read Tim O’Reilly’s essay Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution, if you have not yet read it. It starts here and just picks up steam:

Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.

Having fun, I noticed that one of the early adopters of the Founders Copyright is folksinger Roger McGuinn of major 1960s folk-country-rockers The Byrds. McGuinn collects folk songs from the public domain and makes them available on his Folk Den site. Poked around there and found lyrics, tab, and some nice downloads of "I Am A Pilgrim," which the Byrds covered on their groundbreaking 1968 album Sweetheart of the Rodeo.

Illustrates the point nicely: Would all this alt/roots music (rock, country, folk, etc.) have developed the way it has without those public-domain folk songs to cover? What if A.P. Carter's heirs had pulled a Disney with "No Depression?" Would Uncle Tupelo have existed? What about all those bands they spawned directly and indirectly?!