Lawrence Lessig has released his new book Free Culture both in print and as a free download. And of course, it is released under a appropriate Creative Commons License allowing you to redistribute the book as you like as long as it is non-commercial activity.

The whole Creative Commons project is the right answer to the ongoing copyright paranoia. Sharing and allowing free distribution is essential and the open source software movement has already shown that it has power.

If you are a creative person, consider putting your work under the least restrictive license you can bear. It will benefit others. And it will benefit you in return. Sooner or later. But for sure.