Standing on Shoulders

Mike Linksvayer, CTO of Creative Commons (CC), just posted a graph we think is fun.

The graph shows the growth of CC licensed photos at Flickr.  The growth is really solid.  Interestingly, the graph itself is an example of the type of collaboration that Creative Commons enables.  Let's break it down:

A Swivel member called redjar uploaded data about Flickr and Creative Commons into Swivel.  All user submissions at Swivel are under a Creative Commons attribution license.  That allowed another Swiveler, Dmitry, to work out his own take on that data and he ultimately created a new graph.  Meanwhile Franz Patzig, a Flickr member, probably had no idea when he shared his photo called CC - also under a Creative Commons license - that Dmitry would end up choosing Franz's photo as the background image of his new graph.  And now because the new graph is also licensed under Creative Commons other folks are free to blog it - as Mike did - or adapt it for some other purpose.

4 strangers collaborated together to create something new and valuable, brought to us by Creative Commons.

I have said it before, I am truly tickled to see that the good work of lawyers can unleash so much creativity.  It's fantastic.