In the vein of the Open Source movement comes: Open Clip Art (http://openclipart.org/). The SVG material is releases under the creative commons agreement. You can download an upload clip art to their repository.
I've had the thought that after all of the years of cease-and-desist orders issued by Fox to X-Files fans; and Lucasfilm to Star Wars fans, that there should be the Open Source concept applied to fictional characters. Someone makes a galaxy, someone else makes an alien race, someone else makes a chacters; etc. Once contributed, any creator can use all of the intellectual property but claim ownership to none of it. They would be able to publish books and hold copyright over the majority of the work as an intellectual property, but any minority element would be Open Source. In other words. Publish a book and it's yours; as is your book broken into two halves and sold by someone else-- that's a no-no. However, if you describe the lush blue forests of Deneb 5 in there, that's a minority element that becomes part of the Collective Intellectual Property. Anyone can use that. There would have to be rules for establishing, maintaining and reparing canon, but that could be worked out. Maybe the creator of an element gets to nix an ammendment; or gets two months to nix an ammendment so that fickle or stubborn creators don't get to stall their Open Source franchise.
I've had the thought that after all of the years of cease-and-desist orders issued by Fox to X-Files fans; and Lucasfilm to Star Wars fans, that there should be the Open Source concept applied to fictional characters. Someone makes a galaxy, someone else makes an alien race, someone else makes a chacters; etc. Once contributed, any creator can use all of the intellectual property but claim ownership to none of it. They would be able to publish books and hold copyright over the majority of the work as an intellectual property, but any minority element would be Open Source. In other words. Publish a book and it's yours; as is your book broken into two halves and sold by someone else-- that's a no-no. However, if you describe the lush blue forests of Deneb 5 in there, that's a minority element that becomes part of the Collective Intellectual Property. Anyone can use that. There would have to be rules for establishing, maintaining and reparing canon, but that could be worked out. Maybe the creator of an element gets to nix an ammendment; or gets two months to nix an ammendment so that fickle or stubborn creators don't get to stall their Open Source franchise.
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