I'd like to propose a project I tentatively refer to as "Commons Force" (Meta 
link: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/CommonsForce).

Commons Force is a wiki used to coordinate a force of volunteers who *actively* 
educate people about the concepts of public domain and the Creative Commons.

That entails those volunteers systematically searching the internet and media 
archives such as Flickr for PD and CC material wrongly labelled as being 
"copyright, all rights reserved" and the likes, and notifying the person who 
wrongly used the label about the problem (using whatever means are provided by 
the site), along with a link to a small wiki designed exclusively to educate 
about PD and CC.

The goal is *not* to threaten those people in any way, and messages sent will 
never contain any threats, whether legal, moral or personal. Rather, the 
project aims to educate the many, many internet users who don't worry about 
rights at all, because they truly don't know jack about them. They might know 
copyright, but overestimate its reach and/or not be aware that there are 
alternatives. When being told about the wide world of rights and how copyright 
alternatives like Creative Commons can promote access to free knowledge they 
might consider re-licensing most or all of their works.

In essence, what's being proposed is a Wiki that acts as a complement to the 
Open-source Ticket Request System on Commons. Instead of receiving license 
information about media on Commons, the idea is to send out license information 
about media on the internet to those whom it concerns.

Since this would obviously promote both the free access to knowledge and 
people's awareness of key open content concepts like PD and CC, the proposal is 
in line with the very heart of Wikimedia's goals.


Your opinions & input are more than welcome at the project's discussion page, 
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:CommonsForce.


Cheers,
Jovan Cormac
-- 
Neu: GMX Doppel-FLAT mit Internet-Flatrate + Telefon-Flatrate
für nur 19,99 Euro/mtl.!* http://portal.gmx.net/de/go/dsl02

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