Creative Commons

Creative Commons

Stanford Professional Publishing Course: 07/15/07

Commons?

Commons?•Resources that are freely accessible to any member of a given community

Commons?•Resources that are freely accessible to any member of a given community

•Natural resources (air, water, parks)

Commons?•Resources that are freely accessible to any member of a given community

•Natural resources (air, water, parks)•Cultural resources (creative works, scientific works, public knowledge)

Creative Commons

Creative Commons• Nonprofit org started in December 2002 to help simplify the

development of a pool of free and legal reusable cultural content

Creative Commons• Nonprofit org started in December 2002 to help simplify the

development of a pool of free and legal reusable cultural content• Provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators

easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry

Creative Commons• Nonprofit org started in December 2002 to help simplify the

development of a pool of free and legal reusable cultural content• Provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators

easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry

• CC offers an alternative to full copyright; lets you easily change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”

Creative Commons• Nonprofit org started in December 2002 to help simplify the

development of a pool of free and legal reusable cultural content• Provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators

easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry

• CC offers an alternative to full copyright; lets you easily change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”

• Voluntary tools for creating a public good – more freely available cultural resources

Why?

©

©Copyright

Copyright?

• Law designed to govern creative and expressive works

Copyright?

• Law designed to govern creative and expressive works• We like copyright!

Copyright?

• Law designed to govern creative and expressive works• We like copyright!

• It encourages creation

Copyright?

• Law designed to govern creative and expressive works• We like copyright!

• It encourages creation• It promotes dissemination

Copyright?

Copyright?

• Applies automatically upon fixation of a creative work to tangible form

Copyright?

• Applies automatically upon fixation of a creative work to tangible form

Copyright?

Copyright?

• Grants copyright owner a bundle of exclusive rights

Copyright?

Copy/Distribute Publicly Perform Publicly Display Build Upon Digitally Distribute

If you want to ...

Copy/Distribute Publicly Perform Publicly Display Build Upon Digitally Distribute

then you need to ASK.

So, what’s the problem?

So, what’s the problem?• Digital technologies have revolutionized how

creative works are made, distributed, and used

So, what’s the problem?• Digital technologies have revolutionized how

creative works are made, distributed, and used• Digital technologies implicate the right to copy

through the sheer nature of how they work

So, what’s the problem?• Digital technologies have revolutionized how

creative works are made, distributed, and used• Digital technologies implicate the right to copy

through the sheer nature of how they work

• The potential that digital technologies offer also implicates the right to make derivative works

So, what’s the problem?

So, what’s the problem?• Sometimes full copyright discourages creation and

dissemination, even though the creator may want to encourage these things.

So, what’s the problem?• Sometimes full copyright discourages creation and

dissemination, even though the creator may want to encourage these things.• It can prohibit people who might benefit from

creative work from being able to legally use it.

So, what’s the problem?• Sometimes full copyright discourages creation and

dissemination, even though the creator may want to encourage these things.• It can prohibit people who might benefit from

creative work from being able to legally use it.

• What if you want to give up some of your copyright rights and contribute creative work to the commons for sharing and reuse?

Creative Commonscopyright licenses

Provide a legal infrastructure for creators

that is both easy to understand and use

creativecommons.org

creativecommons.org

License

Three different formats

From 50footwave.com © ThrowingMusic

From 50footwave.com © ThrowingMusic

Global

Millions of pieces of creative content available to the public for free and legal use under Creative Commons licenses

Search

Using metadata

From yahoo.com © Yahoo! Inc.

From google.com © Google

Reuse

Top graphic from charlierose.com © Charlie Rose Inc.Photo and text from flickr.com/photos/jurvetson© Steve Jurvetson

From schmap.com © Schmap, Inc.

From plos.org © PLoS

CC+ PLoS

Screen grab from boletinfarmacos.org Text translated from a CC-BY licensed article that appeared in PLoS Medicine in April 2005

CC+ PLoS• Enables free and legal reuse, such as translations

Screen grab from boletinfarmacos.org Text translated from a CC-BY licensed article that appeared in PLoS Medicine in April 2005

First court case

From flickr.com/photos/adamc1999/© Adam Curry

From flickr.com/photos/adamc1999/© Adam Curry

Page from Weekend, which used Curry’s photos in a way that violated the CC license

“In principle, Curry owns the copyright in the four photos, and the photos, by their posting on that website, are subject to the [Creative Commons] License. Therefore Audax should observe the conditions that control the use by third parties of the photos as stated in the License…The claim [...] will therefore be allowed; defendants will be enjoined from publishing all photos that [Curry] has published on www.flickr.com, unless this occurs in accordance with the conditions of the License.”

Curry v. Audax, District Court of Amsterdam – March 9, 2006, Interim measure, Case no. 334492 / KG 06-176 SR

In use

From ocw.mit.edu© MIT

From pumpaudio.com© Pump Audio

From goodmagazine.com© GOOD Magazine

From gatehousemedia.com© GateHouse Media, Inc.

Wired cover and CD design© Conde Nast

From scoopt.com© Scoopt

From lulu.com© Lulu, Inc.

Some Rights ReservedExcept where noted, the contents of this presentation are licensed to the public under the

Creative Commons Attribution license. The terms of this license are available athttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/.