Over Any Fence By Sean Ripple www.flickr.com/photos/flatlife Instead of working to commodify your virtual creations, why not embrace the arc that has made itself apparent through the open-source? The virtual commune being a place to exhibit and share the ideas you have worked on with anyone who would like to partake. As opposed to securing copyrights (a now evident square peg to the elliptical nature of appetite) why not relinquish the right to copy the idea or image or work, allowing it to move where it would like, with nothing more than your name and web address attached for identification? One answer among many to the question, “why not?” is that without a legal mechanism in place, the image or idea or work can be adopted as someone else’s with little consequence suffered by the person who decides to take the information good and make it his/her own. This is certainly an undesired outcome. However, my understanding is that a thief will always steal. A deterrent only discourages specific cases. If a thief's desire is strong enough, in most instances, it will lead him over any fence that surrounds the object of desire. If you give away something that you’ve created, and a thief takes it and makes it his own, what should your response be? How about giving away more than the thief cares to take? Brand loyalty being paid to the one who continues to create that which he/she alone can call into being. Let the thief take your scraps and let those who choose to accept your gift, feast.