Open Source Literature

and, just what do we mean by "free"?

• Make the document freely available without charge.  The author can still solicit money for their document, but people have unrestricted ability and choice to either pay the author, or not.
• Do not grant others the right to control, or claim ownership of, the work.  You may use another author's work, but you can't then claim it, and control anyone else's use of it.
• Grant others the rights to modify the document, and to distribute the modified work, as long as this is done without charge.  Yes, you may modify another author's work, and distribute the modified version, as long as you don't charge anyone for it, and make it clear that the work you're distributing is free of charge¹.
  

The Questions

1. How does the concept of Open Source apply to literature?
2. How do we make sure authors are treated fairly?  What about supporting authors?  How's it possible when you don't pay them for their work?  Will free literature eliminate the ability of an author to write for a living?
3. What about artistic control?
4. How do we avoid the "J. R. R. Tolkien" scenario?
   
5. How do we make sure that the literature we support, and love, is of the very highest caliber?  To quote Duke Ellington, "It Don't Mean A Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)".
6. How do we promote love of literature?
7. How do we promote love of theater?
   

The Answers

1. Firstly, FreePlays.org doesn't remove an older version of a play if someone modifies the play.  We keep both old and new versions available.  This enables keeping the value of the original work (and honoring the original author), while also allowing updates, translations, adaptations, abbreviations, expurgations, Bowdlerizations, and abridgments.
   
   If you read the various editions of Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" (especially if you compare the first edition with later editions such as the 4th), you can notice how Darwin's outlook changes over the years.  You can see how Darwin responds to his own environment, including the firestorm of religious fundamentalism that cascaded down upon him after publication.
   
   John Grisham wrote a book called "A Time To Kill".  It was one of his first books, if not the very first.  If you like Grisham's other books, and read "A Time To Kill", you can tell both the good writer that Grisham ended up becoming, and also some rough or less skillful parts.  Authors often state that they would not write their early works in the same way if they had it to do over.  But though unpolished, maybe not "mature" (whatever that means) and containing errors, the works are still very valuable, and maybe even beloved as they were first published.
   
   With open source literature we can have it both ways.  The original author can revise their work, if they feel like it.  Other can revise it as well.  The originals and the revisions continue to be available.  Readers may take value from originals, revisions, or both.
   
2. Don't plagiarize.  Don't use an author's work without permission.  If you do just those minimum things, you will not treat an author unfairly.  As for deriving income, some authors do get paid enough for their work to earn a living at it.  The vast majority do not.  If they choose to contribute their work to the public domain, it doesn't hurt them.  In some cases it can help.  Playwrights who contribute a script to FreePlays.org get exposure.  Maybe somebody who read or heard an author's free play may pay that same author for other of their works.
   
3. Artistic control is important.  An author who agrees to offer an Open Source work agrees not to forbid others from adapting their work.  But since the original is always available, the author's own original work is never "ruined".  Of course an author may feel bad, if it happens that an adaptation or version becomes more popular and beloved than the author's original.  But the author can feel good about it, too.  After all, credit and honor go to the original author.  Even if the derivative work is more popular, the original author is the one who brought the idea, and the work, into the world.
4. All fair-minded people would like to avoid the "J. R. R. Tolkien scenario".  Briefly, a movie studio made about $1,000,000,000, that is, one billion U.S. dollars, by producing Tolkien's trilogy "The Lord of the Rings" as three movies.  Director Peter Jackson garnered great fame and praise for his part in the production.  He also made quite a bit of money off of the effort.
   
   J.R.R. Tolkien died before the movies were made, but neither he nor his heirs got any of that billion dollars.  Tolkien sold the movie rights to his trilogy for $20,000 (that is twenty thousand U.S. dollars), and that is all he ever got from the movie industry for the Lord of the Rings.  Sounds unfair?  Sure does.  Completely legal and according to contract, but it stinks.
   
   FreePlays.org avoids the "J.R.R. Tolkien" scenario by our limitation that you may use any of our works, but if you make any work product out of them, you must distribute that product free of charge.  Revisions, movies, transmissions, printouts, course materials - if you base them on works from FreePlays, you have to give 'em out free.  If you are considering giving a play to the world via FreePlays, you will not have happen to you what happened to J.R.R. Tolkien².
   
   
   
5. Open-source literature keeps its quality by making available both original works and adaptations.  The ability of other authors to modify your work doesn't mean they wreck what you wrote.  Your work is still available.  In practice this works just like "Ave Maria", which was interpreted by Gounod but based on Bach.  Both the Bach and the Gounod are still available.  Most people that know this piece and love it, know the Gounod adaptation.  But for those who believe that the original Bach is better, it's still available.  You can play it, hear it, make and get recordings of it.  What worked for Bach and Gounod can work for us.
   
6. We promote the love of literature by making it available.  More readers, more love.  Did you think someone will only enjoy a work, or enjoy it more, if they pay money for it?  It isn't so.  The love of literature historically has been nurtured just as much, if not more, by public libraries and friends lending copies, as by commerical publishing houses and people buying copies.
   
   There's another half to this effort - the giving half.  There's a tremendous amount of "wasted" literature in the world that for one reason or another never reached an audience.  The love of an author for the readers of his or her work is never fully expressed in these situations.  And the loving act of giving literature to readers is stymied.  Open source literature, combined with the technology to support near-free distribution,  enables this other kind of "literate love" - the love of the author/giver.
   
7. We promote the love of theatre just like we promote the love of literature.  Make it available, so that more people can use it, learn it, love it, and learn to love it.
   

What does "free" mean?

• Free as in "Free Speech", and
  
• Free as in "costs nothing"

• Free as in "free of clutter" (no contact information, nothing at all that is not about the play)
• Free as in "free of commercial advertisement"
• Other people may distribute your work, or transcribe, record, contain, or transmit your work
• But if they do, the distribution must be without charge (in other words, free)
• Other people are free to modify your work and distribute the modifications²
• But if they do, the distribution must be without charge (in other words, free)
• You are free to spell it either "theater" or "theatre".
  

1. You are free to print, copy, read, use, distribute, modify, and perform any and all of these works without royalty.
2. If you distribute these works in any form (including recordings of performances), with or without modification, you must grant these same royalty-free rights.