Steal My Stories

Why My Work is in the Public Domain

By Dixon Kinqade

If you've poked around this website, you may have noticed the footer at the bottom of each page. It states that all text content here is in the public domain. You are free to share it, copy it, redistribute it, adapt it, remix it, transform it, and build upon it in any medium or format and for any purpose.

I didn't have to do that. I could have kept the usual "all rights reserved" and locked my stories behind the same legal machinery that locks away so much of our culture. So why did I do it?

Traditional publishing is a racket. It's always been a rigged game. The setup benefits publishing houses far more than it does authors. They control the presses, distribution, contracts, and back catalogs. Authors get the romance. Publishers get the revenue.

I have no interest in playing that game. The internet and modern technology have made it obsolete anyway. Traditional publishing has been dying a slow and lingering death since the advent of the web.

I see no reason to prop up an outdated model or to hand my work over to middlemen who would lock it behind paywalls and contracts. I put it here. You can have it. No gatekeepers required.

Let me be clear about why I write at all. I don't write because I enjoy it. I don't. Writing is not fun. Editing and polishing is the worst. It's damn hard work.

I am not seduced by some romanticized fantasy of being an author. I don't do it for money or fame. I write the type of stories I want to read, in a style I enjoy reading. I write for myself. I enjoy reading my own work.

If someone else likes it, that's great! If no one else likes it, I don't care. That frees me to do exactly what I'm doing: release it into the public domain, give it away, and let it live or die on its own.

I have nothing to protect. No advance to earn out. No brand to monetize. Just stories I wanted to tell, in a form I wanted to read.

In "A Question of Plagiarism", I argued that every story draws from an ocean of prior art. We are all standing on the shoulders of everyone who wrote before us. Most of what we stand on was never "owned" in the way we've come to think of ownership. The hero's journey, the detective in the fog, the lost valley of wonders, these are the vocabulary of storytelling.

I did not invent that vocabulary. I use it. So do you. So does everyone.

In "Intellectual Property and Copyright are Broken", I argued that the Founding Fathers had it right. Originally, copyright was intended to last for a limited time for one primary purpose. To promote the progress of science and the useful arts. Not to enrich corporations in perpetuity. Not to turn culture into real estate to be passed down and monetized forever.

The bargain was simple. We give you a temporary monopoly so you can profit from your work. In exchange, your work eventually enriches the commons. Everyone benefits. Progress happens.

We have broken that bargain. Copyright terms have been extended repeatedly. The public domain has been starved.

And the people who have gained the most are not the authors. They are the publishers, the estates, the corporations. The ones who control the keys long after the creators are gone.

I cannot single-handedly fix the system, but I can refuse to participate in the pretense.

I publish my work on this website for free because I want you to read it. I want you to enjoy it. I place it in the public domain because I want you to do more than read it. I want you to share it. Quote it. Adapt it.

Take a character and write your own story. Take a plot and put a spin on it. Use my words in your school project, fan fiction, podcast, or remix. Build on them.

That is what the cultural commons is for. That is how stories have always lived. By being retold, reimagined, and passed on.

Some will say I am leaving money on the table. Perhaps. However, I didn't get into this for financial gain, romance, or fame. I got into it for the tales.

I write in the tradition of golden-age pulp: detective yarns, adventure serials, the kind of stuff that was meant to be devoured, shared, passed hand to hand, then tossed in the trash. Putting a padlock on that felt wrong. So I took the lock off.

To my fans, thank you for reading. Thank you for being here. If anything I wrote sparks something in you, an idea, a scene, a whole story of your own, you do not need my permission to run with it. You already have it.

The public domain notice is my way of saying this out loud. My words, thoughts, and ideas are yours now. Use them well. Tell wondrous tales.

Let's see exactly where the magic takes us.