boba fett <3 creative commons

The other day I saw my friend Nelson (founder of Free Culture) in Cambridge. There was Indian food, and also a discussion of this idea of his: “A user-oriented open source software bounties site”. We talked about even expanding it to non-software free culture. It would work like this:

Step 0: Dev gets an itch for some media. “Man, I wish someone would record that epic orchestral piece Zigeunerweisen so I could download it. And I really wish that it was in the Creative Commons, so that I could share it with my friends.”

Step 0.5: Dev realizes that anyone would any taste would have a similar desire. Clearly.

Step 1: Dev posts a reasonable “bounty” for his request. “$200 for a CC-licenses recording of this most awesome song.” He throws in $20 to start things off.

Step 3: Smart folk log onto the site and throw in their donations.

Step 4: $200 is reached, and given to a community orchestra in Tulsa, who have recorded a righteous version of the song. Score!

Actually, this isn’t just a scenario; this is how I’m feeling right now. Clearly, this would be a good thing for Free Culture.