Yiibu » Creative Commons Origami Fortuneteller

What surprised me when I first started researching the artform was how it was almost impossible to find un-copyrighted origami patterns. Of course, from a pure copyright law point of view, anything ‘fixed in a tangible medium’ is copyrightable and in many countries, becomes instantly copyrighted upon creation. But legalities aside, I was shocked at the depth of the proprietary movements surrounding origami. Not only were patterns or folds copyrighted, but often so were instructions. While there were ancient origami folds (dubbed ‘traditional’,) that presumably were in the public domain, their representation in books (the teaching of the fold, the photography, diagrams etc.) was copyrighted. The end result being that it was almost impossible to find origami that I could confidently distribute under a Creative Commons license.

So here is the best I’ve been able to come up with—a downloadable origami fortuneteller. Instructions included. Just fold on the dotted lines. And in the spirit of things, what better topic than Creative Commons licenses.

Amen, sister. You’re not alone in your despair on that front. And, like you, some of us are making an effort to change it.

I’m not claiming that the Creative Commons license works for everything, or everyone- that would be silly. But it really does go a long way to wards liberating content while keeping abuse from happening. Nobody likes releasing something they’ve worked long and hard on just to see it abused; the CC licensing doesn’t stop that, of course, but gives you some nice protection from the most egregious sorts.

This is a topic which I will revisit, but not on a lazy snowy sunday afternoon! I am very thankful for your effort in putting this out there and publicizing the CC license scheme. Keep up the good work!