In thinking about Creative Commons and derivative works, I started looking toward my own jewelry.
I don’t mess with the copyright on my jewelry designs. Given my love for the ease of encouraging others to build on a theme, it really seems hypocritical to not want to share my jewelry. This actually ate at me for a couple of days, and then it occurred to me why I’ve been afraid to lighten up on these pieces.
My pieces are, to some extent, derivative works themselves. I saw a pattern or a real piece of jewelry and thought, “That’s pretty cool, but what if…” For whatever reason, I decided that if my work is derivative to a point, then I probably had no right to offer it to be further derived from.
This is silly. I’m one step in development by deriving, by inspiration. When I don’t open my pieces to be derived from, I break the creative chain.
That just doesn’t match with the artist I want to be.
It’ll take a bit, but I’m going to work toward sharing all of my jewelry and instructional guides under Creative Commons licenses.
