(A)GPL as a license for fiction?

[Krystian Galaj]

Also, if you write under a common pseudonym, it's much harder to find your other works after reading one of them. It's like a brand, needs to be recognizable and it should be possible to find more of it.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Moejoe

Are we not moving towards that very situation though, as a culture, as participants with in that culture? The value proposition might change soon, from our old notions of the individual, the sole author, to the work and many authors (credited or not).

It's all exciting whichever angle you might approach the digital world from as a creator. Best time to be a creator than any other time in history, I would guess.

I think that would depend on the creator, and whether their interest is in disseminating their work, or getting paid to create.

I, myself, don't see an inexorable shift towards the group-creation you suggest. People still respond to identities, especially identities they trust. One thing about group creation is that is tends to dilute the individual, and their individual creativity. Sometimes this is not a bad thing... but it can be disastrous to some works, like novels (few novels written by famous collaborators, or a famous and an upstart collaborator, have been as good as works written by the one famous author).

Even when groups are collected, people still respond to the person who collected them (for instance, the Wild Cards series written by many hands, but edited by George R.R. Martin). The guiding hand of the individual is still valued, given extra weight in the public eye, and more likely to be perused than something edited by no one, or collected by a no-name Johnny-come-lately.

Despite the homogenization of the internet and the digital, the individual has not perished from this world. As things become more and more impersonal, people reach out to those they can connect to, whether it be family, friends, or just a name they recognize as a trusted brand.

When works are written by anonymous sources, they will lose much of their weight and value... they will still be words, but without a context of identity, they will be worth that much less, no matter how powerful. Identity is a fundamental part of creation, and it should not be lost.