Weird Karma - I just watched a video blog

Chris Messina just pointed me to Episode 2 of the Open Media Video blogs with Tantek Çelik.

First, I think interviews - although talking heads - are valid A/V content as they are discussions/conversations and as such benefit from the medium. A transcript would be nice, but they are time consuming. Though a podcast may be preferable to video if no visuals are needed.

Any way...

I like Tantek's thinking on open formats. I posted about the need for open formats for rich media a while ago. However, I am not sure I hold his view on the public domain being good for open standards.

Now I am not a copyright lawyer, but putting something into the public domain must be done with a great deal of thought, as the ramifications are quite profound. As I understand it (and am happy to be corrected), when a work is in the Public Domain - I or anyone can actually take the work and make a derivative work from it. That derivative work will have all rights reserved unless otherwise stipulated. I am not even obligated to credit the original source.

Now in the open standard world there are many competing interests and MANY perfectly acceptable ways of doing anything. However, for a standard to become "standard use" it must align the majority of the competing interests into adoption. By putting everything into the public domain there is very little motivation to work with others. Working together with others is hard work. We all have different views. Public Domain removes the burden of working with others when I am free to take what everyone has contributed to and make it suit my interests. My interests are the reason I participated in the project/idea/work to begin with isn't it? Remember, interoperability is not the only reason we may participate in an open source project.

It's important to note that I might be really smart and in the end my interests are your interests and my way will be adopted. Even then, it would be better if I had to work within a GPL or CC framework so that my work actually remains in the public interest if not the public domain.

Tantek Çelik is a crazy smart guy. He obviously has thought this through, but I am having trouble seeing it.