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I'm up at the makerspace trying to get my life in order before we leave for Designercon 2026 in Las Vegas.
There is so much to do and I am unprepared for most of it.
I have untreated ADHD, with it's accompanying lack of executive function. This makes it very difficult for me to Get Started on things.
But, unlike a lot of my ADHD comrades, I also slip into hyperfocus with almost laughable ease once I've started a task (and can, at times, juggle three or four different things at once, to keep my brain stimulated enough to do them all.)
When I'm working, I get a monumental amount done in a fairly short period of time.
But getting started is hard.
I self medicate for this with a lot of caffeine and by leaving 10+ open tasks in various degrees of unfinished on any given day, and by overloading myself with goals.
Some days, looking at all the open, unfinished things is impossible, so I procrastinate by laying the groundwork for a new thing.
Some days, looking at the list of things I need to start is impossible, so I pick whatever of the open unfinished things catches my attention and I run with it.
This is why it seems like I'm always doing a million disparate things.
I am! Sort of, mostly.
They aren't actually disparate. They all weave together into a shared world view and form a statement of purpose and intent.
I am making media, and that includes toys and games and comics and cartoons and live action television, and music, and I am broadcasting and distributing that media, and that includes bookstores and television networks and radio stations and talking about random bullshit on the internet.
These things are One Thing.
In 2009, on my way home from the first vacation my wife and I took together, we discussed everything Disney does and what it would take to DIY Disney.
What does owning the means of production look like for a media empire?
We talked about this a lot. Every once in a while, I remember that it has shaped what I've done since then.
(an aside: that conversation hasn't shaped anything. that conversation was shaped by everything that came before it. I am just on the same road I've always been on.)
So what does it look like to have Communal Ownership of a media empire like Disney?
1) It looks like the creative commons CC-BY-SA license! Copyright is a broken, regressive system that I believe fundamentally robs people of the terrible joy of a shared folklore, and encapsulates that shared folklore into a commercial product to be sold to them.
Disney uses their own interpretations of copyright law and their enormous (in both senses) legal influence to serve, in this modern world, in a similar role to the Catholic Church in the renaissance.
Think about it!
So we reject them, we reject the church of the mouse, by creating our own works (and sharing them freely with one another.)
And yes, this gets very messy when every corporation on the planet is feeding everything everyone has ever made into the statistically averaging slop machine.
I understand why many people would not want to share freely in that world.
But the output of the statistically average slop machine is hot garbage. No matter how polished it gets, no matter how undetectable it gets, it will remain pathetic.
So I've decided that I don't care!
If the AI steals something I've produced, they are already in violation of the law (CC-BY-SA means that they have to 1) credit me, which they do not and 2) release their derivative work under the same terms, which they are legally prohibited from doing in the united states.)
If the law has already failed to protect me from the slop machine, that will not somehow turn me into a copyright maximalist.
My values still point me towards sharing and giving back, and CC-BY-SA lets me signal to the people who still respect one another that they are both allowed and encouraged to re-use my work, and sets the terms under which I would prefer for them to do it.
We must own our own folklore, pop-culture must belong to everyone.
That's why all the original characters we produce for @MountainTownToys are CC-BY-SA.
That's why our video games are CC-BY-SA, that's why our comics and our podcasts and our TV shows and our fiction are CC-BY-SA
(And, let me be clear, I'm not working under the misapprehension that something I make is likely to *become* folklore or pop-culture. I don't really even *want* that.
But I want whatever does become popculture and modern folklore to be free to reinterpret and reshape, so I make sure what I create is too.)
I will not remove that signal. I will not make another choice. I will not let my fear or anger towards the slop machine prevent me from taking a loud stance in favor of collaboration and shared creativity.
I'm wide awake, it's morning.