Since this contest is being funded by donations from the general public, then the products of this contest should also be accessible to the general public. So, the prize winning entries will be released under a CC-BY-SA license, sometimes called a “copyleft” license. Let me break down this acronym.

• The CC part indicates Creative Commons. The letters that follow indicate which of the licenses is being used.
• The BY requires that the work be attributed to the original author.
• The SA which means that others can share or remix or use the work commercially, provided they make their own work available under the same terms.

Of course, any of these conditions can be waived with permission from the copyright holder, which is how we’re going to publish the story in the edited academic book.

If you’re confused by all of this and you’re an author, look at it this way. It’s similar to selling your story to a magazine, but better because you retain more rights at the end. Like a magazine, we are purchasing the story from you, and you are being paid in prize money. Normally, you would sign over exclusive rights to the magazine and that would be the end of it. Unlike a magazine, we, as the new owners of the work, are releasing it back to the world, including you, to do with as you wish in the future.

Creative Commons is important because so many of the ideas in the world are locked down by copyright laws. But the only way that we can progress is to build new ideas upon old ones. So let’s keep these new ideas from being locked down. If you want to know more, take a look at the presentation on Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. A bit long, but very entertaining.

If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you.