I love open content. I really do. I love the idea of free, not just free of cost, but free as in freedom. Free to copy, distribute, add to, borrow from, etc. The sort of freedom that conventional copyright doesn't actually allow.

The Creative Commons license is a great idea: it allows for all of those things that I love doing to other people's copyrighted work. However, and I mean no offense to the great people at CC, for an author, the license is absolute ass. Take, as an example, this hypothetical scenario:

Say that I decided to release my play, Frank and the Zombies, under a version of the Creative Commons license that only requires credit given to me as the original author. Jimmy Cocklord could come along, take it, make it into a porno where every character dressed as a giant penis, and then, have to put a notice in, "Based on a work by Maciej Murakowski." And then people would watch Franks Adventures in Gay Cockland, and say to themselves, "Wow, that Maciej guy was sure gay, wasn't he? I mean, there's so much penis here."

To be honest, I wouldn't want my name attached to that. Yes, there is a clause mandating that, if I asked Jimmy to remove my name, he'd have to. But I'd have to watch Frank and the Zombie Cocks of Doom to know that Cocklord is using my characters, to know that my name is on a gay porno. And I really don't want to watch that sort of thing. Of course, I can't choose a version of the license that doesn't require credit to the original author, because Jimmy Ripoff, the famous Hollywood screenwriter could come along, take it, and sell it to a major studio for a million bucks, and I'd be powerless to stop him (not to mention that such a version does not exist).

So what I really need is a license that lets other people do with it pretty much what they please, but ensures that they don't rip me off, and that they don't produce anything that I'd be ashamed to have my name on.

But writing a license is difficult and time-consuming. Then it struck me: I'd "borrow" the Creative Commons license (incidentally, this isn't illegal as all CC licenses are released under the CC Attribution license), insert a few clauses, take out some of the parts that I don't really need, and use it as my own, far more awesome, license.

So, the Awesome License was born. In plain English terms (based on CC), under the Awesome License, in addtion to all the rights that fair use provides, you are free to:

under the following conditions:

Also, for any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.


That's it. It's a CC, except that you can't take my work and make it dick.

For the interested, a legal jargon version is here.

In addition, I retroactively release all of my work thus far under the Awesome License. Also, any subsequent work, unless explicitly noted otherwise, is released under the Awesome License. That's all images, text, etc. on this site that I own the copyright to, this article, and the text of the license itself. As for the work that I don't exclusively own the copyright to, I'd like to thank Megan for agreeing to Awesome all of our collaborative plays.

Also, I made a few images based on the Creative Commons logo. I'd like to consider them satire. You can find them on every page that is Awesome'd (except for the ones that are already up, because that would just take way too much effort).