For some time I have documented the spread of Open Source Sorcery by starting a page in the KIAwiki just for that specifically.  This followed the spread of the Open Source movement in computing that believed in sharing the code that programs ran on to allow community feedback on parts of the code that needed improving.  Some Open Source licenses went further, releasing code on permissive licenses that allowed for branching, or even protected the code so that all branches need to be released on the same license.

As the buzz word grew some new occult groups formed and adopted the term.  Mainly they seem to have used it to mean open participation, or that the rituals, theories and other writings of the group are made public, albeit often on a still restrictive license.  Sometimes without even permission for others to republish.

Others however have begun wiki projects with licenses such as the GNU Free Documentation License or Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike.  These licenses qualify not just as Open Source, but moreso as Free Cultural Works.  These can be copied, modified and redistributed, by others, provided they give credit and provided they use the same license for the work they release it as a part of.  There is no restriction on commercial use, but exploitation is protected against by the Share Alike license.  If some Hollywood producer were to try and use some clips from a CC AT SA film, they would have to release their whole film on that license, or pay the copyright holders of the clip for rights to use it without those terms.  But if somebody wants to use it on a blog with an advertising banner, no problem.

Wikipedia and other projects show the power behind the kind of collaborative approach that a Free Cultural Works can provide in the realm of reference texts.  The GNU/Linux operating system and most of the software that runs on it demonstrate the power of this approach in writing software.  Less well known projects such as Kaltura video are forming and will in time demonstrate the power of this approach in the realm of film, soundtracks and other creative projects.

With this in mind I started a page in the KIA wiki called ‘Free Cultural Sorcery‘, which is an attempt to catalogue those open source sorcery projects that opperate on a Free Cultural Works approved license. Projects that I organise that fit with this definition include the content on this blog (excluding the nest which remains copyright of its contributors), the KIA wiki, and now the films on alchemical.tv.

For the latter, I am hoping to draw together artists, musicians, script writers and film makers willing to collaborate on Free Cultural Sorcery film projects.  Whether or not others join us, Lolita Perdurabo and I will be working on such projects in any case…

I am currently working on alchemical.tv with Lolita. I’m not going to say much more than that about it at the moment because its pretty secret. Mwah heh heh heh

What I will say however is that some of what we intend to release will be on a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license. The logo test footage was released on this license by way of uploading to Kaltura.

What this means in lay terms is that anyone can use this material in their projects, including commercial projects, so long as that project is also released on the same license, and that credit is given for anything taken.

For more info on why this license was chosen, see the Definition of Free Cultural Works and Reasons Not to Use a Creative Commons – Non Commercial license

I’ve noticed some discussions on irreality.net about sharing culture, which usually revolved around justifications for music piracy and stuff.  Now I’ve got nothing against music piracy.  Many a band I own on vinyl and cd, and have attended concerts of, I first listened to on pirate tapes made for me by friends.  Sometimes I didn’t even like the music until I’d heard it a few times.  Some music really does need to grow on you.  So I’m not down on piracy or anything.  I think many bands whose music is not immediately accessible have benefited from piracy.  Its corporate capitalism that’s killing music, not home taping.

But this article is not about piracy, or even musicians that are giving their music away for free, but rather a more relevant movement to the culture of sharing.  I am talking about Open Source and Creative Commons.

Open Source software, especially Free Software (free as in libre, as well as in beer), has been incredibly successful so far, and is continuing to grow and challenge previously complacent corporate software monoploies for dominance.  Most of the web is hosted on the Open Source apache webhost for example.

I am writing this article on a GNU/Linux PC (an open source operating system) and using the open source Mozilla Firefox web browser.

What is open source?  Well at the basic level it means that the source code is open for to all see.  But proper open source software is released on a license that allows that source code to be reused and modified by other open source projects.  In the case of some licenses, such as Apache and FreeBSD (the open source OS used as the basis for Mac OS X), the license also allows for non open source derivatives to be reproduced.  Essentially it is a challenge to the existing copyright paradigm by presenting a freer alternative.  Ironically these licenses are built upon and rely upon the very copyright laws they are challenging.  But this doesn’t make them less useful.

A number of sorcery and magick related groups have adopted the open source banner, sometimes just to mean their rituals are public, but at other times adopting rather more of the open source philosophy and methodology in the sharing and developing of ideas.  This includes the KIA Illuminated Adepts, which has a wiki article listing those open source sorcery groups we’ve discovered so far.  This includes key23/key64, The Open Source Order of the Golden Dawn, SourceryForge and frequency23.

Creative Commons is a movement to extend this philosophy into the realm of art, photography and other creative pursuits.  I have already released all the internal illustrations from the books Chaos Monkey and Kaos Hieroglyphica on Creative Commons licenses and plan to release more.  The KIA logos, current and historical are also available on these licenses.  These images can be found in my deviant art gallery.  Not everything in there has been released on said license, but good portion has been.

I am very interested to see what other creatives are able to do in terms of derivations on these works.  The license I have chosen allows derivations, allows commercial works, but requires that the new image be released with the same license.