open domainAs fas as I’m concerned, the personal finance blogosphere has been turned upside down, and the events may just influence the rest of online media. Strangely enough, no is really talking about it, perhaps because the spotlight is now on other bloggers.

One of the most-read personal finance bloggers, Trent at The Simple Dollar, made the following announcement last week:

“I hereby release all copyright on all written (non-comment) material on The Simple Dollar to the public domain.

What does that mean? If you want to reuse an article from The Simple Dollar in your newspaper, newsletter, or anything else, go right ahead. If you want to hand it out in your Consumer Ed class, print it out. If you want to edit it to suit your own needs, go right ahead. All written material on this site is now in the public domain.

Obviously, if you do use it, I’d appreciate some attribution (Trent Hamm) and a link back to The Simple Dollar (http://www.thesimpledollar.com/).”

Why is this a big deal?

Money of course. The free distribution of his work entails the following:

1. Other sites may copy his work, which in turn could make The Simple Dollar’s search engine rankings go down, drive less traffic to his site, and by extension, generate less ad revenue.

2. Now anyone can sell reprints of his work to other publications. Assuming Trent wanted to sell reprints of his work, that’s more lost revenue.

3. In general, publications need to pay for content. If there are financial publications that need free content, they can now go to The Simple Dollar.

But as Trent explains, he doesn’t write for the money. He’s releasing all copyright in hopes that he’ll reach more people who are in desperate need of help with finances. So for instance, if a community newspaper reprints one of his articles, a person without internet access may find the information they need to change their financial health.

Some people would find this noble; others may find it crazy. The idea isn’t completely unique. Just before content from The Simple Dollar was released to the public domain, Leo at Zen Habits released all copyright, calling his work ‘œOpen Source Blogging.’ Leo explains:

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

Copyrights are often touted as protecting the artist, but in most cases the artist gets very little while the corporations make most of the money. I’m trying this experiment to see whether releasing copyright really hurts the creator of the content.

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

Limited distribution or access is essentially the heart of the economy: control a stream of resources or finished goods, and you have the potential of making profit. What Trent and Leo are saying is that people can take their creative works for free so that it’s disseminated as far as possible, all for the reason that their ideas can be spread or improved upon. Profit be damned — not just for themselves — but for whoever else could gain profit from their work.

I admire what Trent and Leo are doing, but it’s not something I’m ready to try yet. Trent and Leo are established bloggers with very large readerships. Although I’ve recently passed my one-year anniversary of personal finance blogging, I’m not as established as I’d like to be. I love writing for a LGBT website, though getting recognition from the mainstream press isn’t the easiest.

If I did release my work to the public domain, perhaps I’d enjoy a larger readership, but I’m not confident that I’d be credited for my work. There is still 37% of the population who would scream, ‘œWhat?! A GAY wrote this! Quick douse me with holy water before I burn in hell!’ Then again, I received feedback from the mainstream press that some LGBT personal finance topics are too political to appeal to a large audience. Casually mention that your finances are different because of marriage discrimination, and I guess that means you’re writing propaganda for a revolt. Heck, maybe releasing my work to the public domain would get my work around questionable editorial decisions and to a larger readership?

But not quite yet. Give me another five years or so, and just maybe I’ll consider releasing all my copyright in later works. I believe that if you truly love an art, you do it for free. I’d love to be a full-time professional writer, but more than that I’d love to be at the point where I can write down the words in my head and never give a thought as to whether I earn a dime. Those are dreams for now. At this moment, I have more practical concerns like earning income and saving.

Dear readers, what would you do? Would you release all copyright of your creative works so that they may be more widely published and/or rewritten for better or for worse? What’s your take on these recent events?