After seeing a Boing Bong post about Kelly Link, I started reading her Stranger Things Happen short story collection, which she released under a Creative Commons license(!).
I haven’t finished it, but so far it is worthy of recommendation. If you like science fiction or strange stories in general, check it out. I don’t read enough short stories, and this was a welcome reintroduction.
What I particularly like is that she released it under a CC license. It’s nothing new to me, really, but it may be the first time I’ve seen it with a work of fiction. I’m much more familiar with the factual or functional copyleft community. It’s a pretty cool idea to be able to play around with characters, plots, and narration. I’d be even more excited, but I don’t consider myself a writer.
My one beef is with the noncommercial clause she used. I’d argue that the NC clause does more harm than good. The attribution and share-alike clauses are enough to prevent people from screwing you over.
My opinions on the matter are largely informed by this article, but I’ll briefly say that NC works are not compatible with the growing body of GNU-licensed works, prevent even small-time derivers who happen to support themselves via advertising (e.g. a blogger that uses banner ads), and (if you can instead use the SA clause) prevent an ecosystem around the work rather than letting it grow.
As long as you have Share-Alike, then any value added is as easily resellable by you as them. No evil corporation can come swooping in and profit of your work while you sit there unrewarded. But letting someone else profit off their value-added can create incentives to do so. Imagine a Chinese dude that wants to translate your work. If he can do so and sell it around, that’s great! He’ll expand the market for your work, and you can sell the translation too.
Very few people want to contribute to an ecosystem where only one person is allowed to profit and it isn’t them. That’s been my experience with open source projects, anyway.