I'd like to propose a project I tentatively refer to as "Commons Force"
(Meta link:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CommonsForce).
Commons Force is a wiki used to coordinate a force of volunteers who *actively* educate
people about the concepts of public domain and the Creative Commons.
That entails those volunteers systematically searching the internet and media archives
such as Flickr for PD and CC material wrongly labelled as being "copyright, all
rights reserved" and the likes, and notifying the person who wrongly used the label
about the problem (using whatever means are provided by the site), along with a link to a
small wiki designed exclusively to educate about PD and CC.
The goal is *not* to threaten those people in any way, and messages sent will never
contain any threats, whether legal, moral or personal. Rather, the project aims to educate
the many, many internet users who don't worry about rights at all, because they truly
don't know jack about them. They might know copyright, but overestimate its reach
and/or not be aware that there are alternatives. When being told about the wide world of
rights and how copyright alternatives like Creative Commons can promote access to free
knowledge they might consider re-licensing most or all of their works.
In essence, what's being proposed is a Wiki that acts as a complement to the
Open-source Ticket Request System on Commons. Instead of receiving license information
about media on Commons, the idea is to send out license information about media on the
internet to those whom it concerns.
Since this would obviously promote both the free access to knowledge and people's
awareness of key open content concepts like PD and CC, the proposal is in line with the
very heart of Wikimedia's goals.
Your opinions & input are more than welcome at the project's discussion page,
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CommonsForce.
Cheers,
Jovan Cormac
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