Licensing wasn’t exactly a thing I used to think about for the personal projects I create. I used to use Creative Commons and WTFPL almost interchangeably (the former for artworks, the latter for code), as if these were to mean the same “I don’t care about what you’re gonna do with this creation” (narrator voice: these didn’t mean the same thing).

But, then, one aspect I’ve been thinking about for my ongoing project (doing a 3D model of a full, animatable owl I’ve sculpted from scratch in Blender), an aspect of which will likely influence other projects I happen to create after the ongoing one, is licensing.

To the one hand, I don’t want to require attribution, I don’t care about attribution precisely because I’m taking nothing with me after I die someday. Preferably, I’d want it to be part of Public Domain so every human and (who knows?) non-human living being could use it for free (even though I myself had my costs while creating the things I create, it’s important to me that I release my personal creations free of charge so these are affordable for anyone to use/modify/appreciate).

To the other hand, and this is a feeling that have grown more and more intense deep down inside me as the days pass (a hatred for capitalist greed exploiting the creations originally made and dedicated for free; a hatred for the exploitation of the means of artistic production), I don’t want projects deriving from and/or using this creation to be closed behind private property, I don’t want these to be put behind paywalls.

Originally, I’d be inclined to use CC0, as my initial thought was to dedicate my creations to the Public Domain (as all art and knowledge should be, IMHO), but then there’s the phenomenon in which a corporation (e.g. certain corporations with cartoonish rodent mascots) takes something from PD, does enough to be past the legally-required de minimis threshold for it to be copyrighteable, then close it behind paywalls and trademarks. And even though I’m just a random nobody, I do NOT want this to happen with my creations, I do NOT want this to happen more than I do not want to require attribution. I want it to stay free, free as in libre and, especially, free as in gratis (free of charge). I also want everything that ever makes use of it, as well as every derivative of it, to be free.

As far as I could research about this (especially as IANAL), I learned that, once I dedicate something to PD, reinforcing PD over the derivatives/uses is legally impossible (makes sense as there’s no such thing as a “Earthly Representative of the Public Domain Commons” to sue/punish every corporation daring to privatize something taken for free from the Commons).

It seems like I have only two major choices: I can choose between dedicating my creations to PD (and therefore waiving all my rights over these, including my future ability to sue whoever puts price tags and/or trademarks on top of the things meant to be free) and accept that a landlord can do past the de minimis to exploit these for corporate whims, or I can choose to keep some rights over these (particularly the attribution part) for me to have the legal means to enforce a share-alike licensing requiring the derivatives and projects using these to inherit the gratisness.

Are these my only choices, really? Is there something, preferably tested legally across jurisdictions, which I could use for my projects (especially for my ongoing 3D project once I feel ready to release it) to satisfy this will? Or it’s actually something impossible (enforcing gratisness)? If my current jurisdiction influences on the available choices, I’m Brazilian.