May the Commons Be With You!

Star Wars fandom has always been sophisticated. Does anybody remember Troops? Then there are other great ones, such as Jedi Hunter (Crikey!) and many, many others. Now there is a new and sophisticated kid on the block, Star Wars Revelations, a fan movie produced with $20,000 telling the story of surviving Jedi between episodes 3 and 4.

The interesting part about fandom is that strictly speaking, it is copyright infringement, but the copyright industry has learnt not to enforce it, afraid that if they clamp down on it, they will alienate their fans, who are the ones buying their products anyway. This has prompted Clive Thompson from Slate to argue that Star wars should go Creative Commons. It's an interesting idea, as this is actually what is taking place at the moment. Or there is another option, we could draft a a "fandom" licence.