Hey Everyone,
I’m incredibly appreciative of the support you all have given me in the first couple weeks of this newsletter. The outpouring of texts, emails, and shares has been overwhelming. Creating content can be a daunting task. Putting something you have worked hard on out into the ether remains an anxiety inducing experience for me. Yet, you have been there on the other end and for that I am grateful.
In the spirit of delivering you the best content I can you will notice I’ve made some updates to this week’s newsletter. The new title, One Big Idea, is meant to reflect what you can expect from my newsletter moving forward. Each week we will analyze one idea. We will break down what that idea is, why you should care, and where you can go to learn more.
That’s it. You should be able to read my newsletter over your cup of morning coffee and then be equipped with resources to go even deeper on your own. I’ll continue to think through how to deliver longer form essays but for now I’m going to focus on delivering digestible information that you can immediately put into action.
As always, please keep the feedback coming.
Big Idea No. 1: CC0
What is it?
In the United States a copyright is established as soon as a creation is fixed (i.e. captured) to a tangible work of expression. The intent is to protect authors of original works without them needing to go through the process of registering a copyright. These protections stay intact posthumously for 75 years after the author’s death.
However, what if the creator wants to release their work into the public domain before a copyright expires? What if they want it released into the public domain at creation?
Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (CC0) enables creators to release their intellectual property into the public domain. No rights are reserved by the creator of the work.
Why is it a Big Idea in Web3?
CC0 has existed since 2001. Museums like The Metropolitan Museum of Art have used CC0 to release over 375,000 digital images from their collection into the public domain. Yet, it has been Web3 that has catapulted CC0 into the spotlight.
Why is that?
Decentralization is a Catalyst
CC0 and the decentralized principles of Web3 are congruent. There are no kings here. Both CC0 and decentralization are what you (and the community) choose to do with them. In this sense, both constructs build value from the bottom up. Without a governing centralized authority, individuals feel a shared sense of ownership and responsibility. By releasing work to the people, CC0 pushes action to the individual. As a result, everyone benefits.
CC0 can be a spark to ignite a community’s flame. Individuals stand to commercially profit and gain influence by reusing, enhancing, and remixing these works. This creates a strong incentive structure for works to proliferate.
There may be no project more synonymous with CC0 in NFTs than Nouns. Built on the Ethereum blockchain, Nouns are 32x32 generative pixel characters depicting people, places, and things.
One noun is generated and auctioned every 24 hours, forever. The proceeds of each auction are automatically sent to the Nouns DAO Treasury which holds 26,350 ETH ($45.4M) as of publication. The founding team, known as the Nounders, are compensated by receiving 1 out of every 10 Nouns for the first 5 years.
Noun holders are eligible to participate in the DAO by drafting and voting on proposals. To date 124 proposals have been drafted. DAO funds have gone to initiatives such as:
The Nounders established Nouns as a protocol for the proliferation of Nouns. Couple an open ended mission with a decentralized, incentivized community and you begin to see how CC0 can accelerate the development of a project. The Nounders themselves could not have imagined all the ways the community would propose expanding the exposure of the brand. Nor did they need to.
That is because the thesis of Nouns is grounded in positive sum thinking. By making the project available in the public domain all will stand to benefit from its growth. To that end with the project now operational the Nounders have moved to decentralize every piece of the project. Interfaces for interacting with Nouns auctions like Nouns.wtf and the Nouns Twitter were transferred from the Nounders to the Nouns Foundation, a community operated organization.
Which brings us to our second reason for CC0’s moment in Web3.
What is Dead May Never Die
Building a company comes with expectations. Promises to achieve a central vision and Roadmaps for how to get there.
With these expectations come opinions and comparisons. Strategies are scrutinized and central teams are put under the microscope. Too often what a community perceives to find under that microscope is a team who is not executing to their liking. Calls for more utility, more dilution, and more communication are battling cries when a floor price does not go up and to the right.
However, it is not that the team themselves are a liability. But, rather the existence of a central team creates within itself a built-in blaming mechanism. Thus, to build a centrally owned project in web3 is to sign up for a treadmill you simply can never get off.
Which brings us back to CC0.
No team. No roadmap. No stakes.
When I worked at Amazon we constantly discussed the concept of “Surprise and Delight”. The concept is central to how we humans perceive value in something we expect versus being delivered something unexpectedly. As you probably guessed we perceive the value of the latter far more than the former.
Therein lies the beauty of CC0. Your baseline expectation is set at zero. This is not building a brand. Nor is it a part of venture-backed multi million dollar raises with promises of future revenue multiples. It is a blank canvas for the community to do with what they will. In this way it is not susceptible to the market pressures of its centralized counterparts.
Now some may see this lack of centralized coordination and purpose as a defect. But remember, decentralization is a feature, not a bug. As proven with Nouns, the absence of these centralized pillars of growth does not mean CC0 flounders in stagnation.
Why Should You Pay Attention?
In every tech wave most upstarts go to zero. In my lifetime, I have seen this play out in the dot com boom, the ICO boom, and it’s already occurring with NFTs. NFT brands, like the start ups they are, are statistically likely to fail.
However, art entered into the public domain is not a start up. It’s a digital fingerprint. A cultural artifact. Thus, it is not reliant on a company to survive and it’s development may play out over generations. It is much more likely that a CC0 project is brought back into relevance years from its inception than it would be for a brand. By removing the “key man”, CC0 enables a creative decentralized community to experiment on their timeline.
This is not to say all (or even most CC0) projects will be financially successful. Yet, it is worth asking - what could a highly motivated community with an unlimited time horizon accomplish? The answer is we do not know.
And that in and of itself is a big idea.
Further Reading
CC0 by Creative Commons
The Nouns Virtuous Cycle by Nounders
Letter 26: On cc0, Intellectual Property, and NFTs by Zeneca 33
what are mfers by Sartoshi
Should You Copyright Your NFTs? by Meanix.eth
Thanks for reading this week’s One Big Idea!
Special thank you to Kat for editing and to Nitty/Thrown for the Nouns deep dive suggestion.
Have an idea for a future edition? Be sure to drop a comment or feel free to email me directly at austin@chasingcuriosity.xyz. As always your feedback is welcomed and appreciated.
Have a good week everyone,
Austin