奥巴马和创作共享（creative commons)

CC（creative commons，创作共享)似乎是股挡不住的潮流，现在连政治家都提倡这个了。
美国总统候选人奥巴马前不久致信民主党全国委员会，要求用CC条款对美国总统候选人的辩论进行授权，允许这些内容在网络上自由免费的传播。因为对该辩论进行直播的电视台之前发布了版权声明说禁止他人将辩论录像在网络说传播。所以奥巴马就专门写了一封公开信，希望能够对这一做法进行修改。该信的原文如下：

Dear Chairman Dean:
I am writing in strong support of a letter from a bipartisan coalition of academics, bloggers and Internet activists recently addressed to you and the Democratic National Committee. The letter asks that the video from any Democratic Presidential debate be available freely after the debate, by either placing the video in the public domain, or licensing it under a Creative Commons (Attribution) license.

As you know, the Internet has enabled an extraordinary range of citizens to participate in the political dialogue around this election. Much of that participation will take the form of citizen generated content. We, as a Party, should do everything that we can to encourage this participation. Not only will it keep us focused on the issues that matter most to America, it will also encourage participation by a wide range of our youth who have traditionally simply tuned out from politics.

The letter does not propose some radical change in copyright law, or an unjustified expansion in “fair use.” Instead, it simply asks that any purported copyright owner of video from the debates waive that copyright.

I am a strong believer in the importance of copyright, especially in a digital age. But there is no reason that this particular class of content needs the protection. We have incentive enough to debate. The networks have incentive enough to broadcast those debates. Rather than restricting the product of those debates, we should instead make sure that our democracy and citizens have the chance to benefit from them in all the ways that technology makes possible.

Your presidential campaign used the Internet to break new ground in citizen political participation. I would urge you to take the lead again by continuing to support this important medium of political speech. And I offer whatever help I can to secure the support of others as well.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama

奥巴马的理由是说放弃对辩论的版权或者使用CC条款的话，可以促进公众参与政治对话，同时也可以让更多的人看到这些辩论的内容。莱西格对奥巴马的公开信也是大加称赞。

说起来奥巴马算是运用互联网进行宣传的高手，不仅自己建立了自己的网站，而且在YOUTUBE上可以看到几千个有关他的新闻和演讲的视频，其中很多都是他的竞选团队制作并上传的。另外奥巴马还在MYSPACE上建立了自己的网页，这样的话可以更有效的拉近和年轻选民之间的距离，提升他在年轻人当中的支持率。这些都可以算是他擅于利用新媒体进行宣传的例子，当然背后肯定也有媒体专才出谋划策了，以前在纽约时报上面还看到一篇专门采访奥巴马的媒体顾问的文章，里面就是谈的这个问题。

其实奥巴马支持CC也是对他自己有好处的。辩论的录像如果没有版权保护或者采用CC的话，当然是有更多的人可以免费的看到他的辩论和演讲了，这样也就提高了自己的曝光率，对提升支持率肯定也是大有帮助的。