As of July 1st, 2018, I released all of my copyrights to all of my written materials hosted on this domain (anywhere on mrseidel.com), that I have originally created, with the one exception noted below (regarding my students). Any work that I have not created will be noted directly, and all copyrights will hold true for their respective copyright holders. Any item that contains a copyright will have explicit notice pointing that fact out.

I was inspired by zenhabits.net and their use of uncopyright regarding their materials. As such, I have updated my website to fall under a similar licensing direction. The information below is a modified version of the zenhabits information above to suit the information given on this domain.

There is no need to email me for permission — use my content however you want! Email it, share it, reprint it with or without credit. In fact, feel free to claim it as your own idea, though attribution is appreciated but not required .

I’m not a big fan of copyright laws, especially as they’re being applied by corporations, used to crack down on the little guys so they can continue their large profits.

Copyrights are often said to protect the artist, but in most cases the artist gets very little while the corporations make most of the money. In the 4+ years zenhabits.net has done this experiment, releasing copyright has not hurt them, the creator of the content, a single bit. I will update this notice as time goes on to

I think, in most cases, the protectionism that is touted by “anti-piracy” campaigns and lawsuits and lobbying actually hurts the artist. Limiting distribution to protect profits isn’t a good thing.

The lack of copyright, and blatant copying by other artists and even businesses, never hurt Leonardo da Vinci when it comes to images such as the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper, or the Vitruvian Man. It’s never hurt Shakespeare. I doubt that it’s ever really hurt any artist (although I might just be ignorant here).

And while I’m certainly not da Vinci or Shakespeare, copyright hasn’t helped me, and uncopyright hasn’t hurt me. If someone feels like sharing my content on their blog, or in any other form for that matter, that’s a good thing for me. If someone wanted to share my course work with 100 friends, I don’t see how that hurts me. My work is being spread to many more people than I could do myself. That’s something to celebrate, as I see it.

And if someone wants to take my work and improve upon it, as artists have been doing for centuries, I think that’s a wonderful thing. If they can take my favorite posts and make something funny or inspiring or thought-provoking or even sad … I say more power to them. The creative community only benefits from derivations and inspirations.

This isn’t a new concept, of course, and I’m freely ripping ideas off here. Which is kinda the point.

Counter arguments

There are a number of objects that will likely be brought up to this idea, and here are a few of my responses:

  1. Google rank will go down. My understanding is that Google penalizes pages that have exact duplicates on other sites, when it comes to PageRank. SEO isn’t important to me.

  2. Who knows what people will do with your work? Someone could take my work, turn it into a piece of garbage, and put my name on it. They could translate it with all kinds of errors. They could … well, they could do just about anything. But that kind of thinking stems from a mind that wants to control content … while I am of the opinion that you can’t control it, and even if you can, it’s not a good thing. What if someone takes my work and turns it into something brilliant, and becomes the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or other entrepreneur extraordinaire? What if they become the next super-programmer and make a lot of money on the work? Or more likely, what if they take the work and extend the concepts and make it even more useful, to even more people? Release control, and see what happens. People are wonderful, creative creatures. Let’s see what they can do.

  3. What if someone publishes a book with all your content and makes a million dollars off it? I hope they at least give me credit. And my deepest desire is that they give some of that money to a good cause.

  4. But … they’re stealing from you! You can’t steal what is given freely. I call this sharing, not piracy.

Item of note for students: This does not apply to students taking one of the courses that I teach (typically ICS/TEJ courses) at the high school I teach at. As one of these students, it is expected that you cite your sources and give attribution to the work being used if it is not your own. You are also expected to follow the guidelines in the code of conduct of the school regarding plagiarism and academic honesty. Once you leave the school, you are released from this exception and are free to follow the licensing provided herein.