At first glance, it seems intuitive to closely guard your data like a treasure chest. The standard practice is to charge for access: be it selling small sections for a price per unit, yearly maintenance costs or the incremental fees of cloud computing. The history of the internet, computing and the flow of ideas through society disagree. Ideas and information are spread by copying. Standing in the way of culture's progress does not bring you clients or friends. Successful business models find ways to share knowledge for mutual benefit. Learn to share your work free and easily using Creative commons licensing. Find out how to offload the costs of sharing your work using peer-to-peer technology and external servers. Explore ways to benefit from a community that embraces sharing. Discover how to build off the success and free advertising sharing generates to gain new work that adds value and fattens your pocketbook.

CORRECTION Oct. 15, 2008 4:00PM by Brent JK Wedding Entrance Video that included pirated video resulting in increased record sales was Chris Brown's Forever not the Black Eyed Peas. That's even more incredible given his headlines during the same period.