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Creative Commons (cc) is a non-profit organization that provides alternative licensing agreements for creative works so as to foster the free-flow of information and ideas (Creative Commons, 2005).
===Aim===
Creative Commons was established to provide authors, musicians, artists, coders, photographers, teachers and other content producers an alternative to traditional copyright protection. It allows for creative content producers to attach to their work a licence agreement that may exclude all or some of the restrictions traditional copyright laws place upon their work (Creative Commons,2005).
According to the Creative Commons website (Creative Commons, 2005), ‘ A single goal unites Creative Commons’ current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules.’
===History===
The Creative Commons Foundation is the brainchild of a list of lawyers, filmmakers, entrepreneurs and publishers (Gordon-Murnane, 2005). Established in 2001, the Creative Commons movement drew inspiration from other free licensing innovations such as Richard Stallman’s creation of the GNU General Public License, the copyleft movement, and open source publishing (Gordon-Murnane, 2005; Conhaim, 2002).
There are four basic licensing options available from the Creative Commons website.
· Attribution : You let others copy, distribute, display and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.
· Noncommercial : You let others copy, distribute, display and perform you work – and derivative works based upon it – but for non commercial purposes only.
· No Derivative Works : You let others copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of you work, not derivative works based upon it.
· Share Alike : You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
These basic licences may be mixed and matched to create the most desirable licence agreement for the individual user. There are eleven options available in total, with the only restriction being that a licence cannot feature both Share Alike and No Derivative Works together (Creative Commons, 2005).
Creative commons offers two final licences, which are:
· Public Domain: Here you donate your work to the public commons. You do not claim any rights reserved and let anyone take your work and do what they want with it.
· Founders Copyright: Here you essentially agree to the original US copyright terms of 1790. Then, the law granted the author copyright for fourteen years, with the option of extending it for a further 14 years. Once this time has lapsed, the work is placed in the public domain. Under the founders copyright licence, the author sells their copyright to creative commons for $1. Creative commons then grants the author an exclusive license for fourteen or twenty-eight years (Creative Commons, 2005).
Critics of creative commons believe that the movement intends to undermine current copyright protection (Butler, 2005). Staunch defenders of stringent copyright protection such as Jack Valenti and Hilary Rosen believe that copyright is at the core of creativity (Butler, 2005; Valenti cited in Valeniti and Lessig, 2001). Valenti argues that copyright is the foundation from which the creative industries have developed. He proposes that relaxation of copyright laws would have a deplorable effect on publishers and content producers in all aspects of the creative industries (Valenti cited in Valeni and Lessig, 2001).
Creative commons has also been criticized for not encouraging artists to seek legal advice before attributing a creative commons license to their work (Butler, 2005). It is the irrevocability of the licenses available under creative commons concerns many detractors (Dvorak, 2005).
===See Also===
Lawrence Lessig
Open Publishing
GNU General Public License
A Short Flash Animation Explaining Creative Commons
Butler, S. (2005) “For the Common Good?�? Billboard, Vol.117, No.22, pp.24-6 ISBN 00062510
Conhaim, W. (2002) “Creative Commons Nurtures the Public Domain,�? Information Today, Vol.19, No.7, pp.52-4. ISBN 87556286
Creative Commons(2005)“About�? Creative Commons Website, retrieved 30 September, 2005, from http://creativecommons.org/about/history
Dvorak, J. (2005) “Creative Commons Humbug�? PCMag.com, 18 July 2005, retrieved 15 September, 2005, from http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1838251,00.asp
Gordon-Murnane, L. (2005) “Generosity and Copyright,�? Searcher, Vol.13, No.7, pp.16-24. ISBN 10704795
Valenti, J. and Lessig, L. (2001) “A Debate on Creativity, Commerce & Culture,�? Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, 29 November.
Holly Stewart 13:52, 18 Oct 2005 (EST)
