Participatory creativity is hot, hot. The Lollapoola Mash-Up Contest. Our Own GET CREATIVE! Moving Images Contest (winners to be announced next month). MoveOn.org’s Bush in 30 Seconds advertisement contest. And now even the New Yorker has announced the winner of its own analog-version of an open-source creativity contest, which was more interactive than contests past. (Devoted New Yorker fans will want to watch the great slide show explaining the judging process.)

I don’t remember the New Yorker’s ever explaining the copyright policy for this. Who gets to keep the rights to the final cartoon? Can we re-use those little screwdriver or dog cut-outs for other purposes? And given that it’s cut-outs we’re talking about, how does first sale doctrine tie in to all this?

Clearly the average New Yorker reader — or editor — isn’t as persnickety about their IP as some of us. Maybe next year they’ll go CC.