Open Source: Unions and Creative Commons?

Last year a friend described to me some ways to think about these types of things.

I pinged him again, and these are his thoughts:

"I spent a minute looking for a text file or URL about these concerns, but couldn't find anything. There are two issues that seem to hold real weight:

[1] any of the 'attribution' licenses require that people sharing or
reusing your work link back to your original work, in some way (even
if it's not attribution you want: the situation I described happened
to a blogger a few years ago: he/she created page layouts or CSS,
which someone else then used for some adult content, and the original
creator didn't want to be 'associated' with the content, if that
makes sense)

[2] the licenses are irrevocable -- basically meaning, make sure
you're doing what you want before you start doing it.

I think that an open or semi-open license for union-created content
makes a lot of sense. People usually choose a more restrictive
creative commons license than is really needed: if I were involved
here, I'd ask - why can't all this go into the public domain?"

LaborUnionOrganizing.info wiki

Don't forget that there is also the GNU Free Documentation License. This is a little different from Creative Commons license. It's even less restrictive than Creative Commons. The wikipedia is based on GNU. Much of the software used to build Linux-based operating systems is also published under a similar license for software, the GPL.

By and large, unions are in the business of getting their ideas and published and exposed as much as possible. Very few are in the publishing business and do not expect to make a profit by copyrighting their work. So what sense does it make to copyright anything on their site? Not much.

However, there are exceptions. Logos should probably be copyrighted to prevent unauthorized use in inappropriate ways. Members using a logo probably cannot be prevented from using the logo but you would know better than I on that. But if the work was licensed under CC or the GPL, what would stop an anti-union law firm from setting up a site from using the logo? So I think there is still some value to holding on to that copyright.

Also, don't forget that just because somone copyrights a work doesn't mean they have to enforce the copyright on it. In effect, they can make their work public domain simply by not going after anyone for duplicating their work. The benefit of licensing under the GPL or CC is that it will actively encourage the dissemination of your union's work by signaling to user that "it's OK to copy this stuff."