Creative Commons

Have you wondered what that Creative Commons picture at the bottom left of my blog is about? Ever seen it elsewhere and wondered what’s going on? Well, the Creative Commons is an organisation that produces copyright licences. By default, under copyright law, you are not allowed to reproduce anything you read (whether that’s a blog article, a photograph or a piece of music), except for small extracts under “fair use” rules. If you want to do more (such as quote the whole of something, incorporate a photo into a montage, or alter it to make a new work), you would normally have to contact the creator to ask for specific permission. By contrast, the Creative Commons licence makes it clear that you are allowed to copy a work under certain limitations. So, I allow copying provided I am credited as the author, but do not allow commercial use or the creation of derivative works without specific permission. The Creative Commons licences allow control over each aspect of this – for example, you might allow commercial use but not derivatives, or vice versa. At root, it’s about making things clearer for anyone who wants to make use of material they’ve found on the net.

Sadly, some people get a bee in their bonnet about these licences, and some of the advocates of the Creative Commons can be technoutopians who spout silly nonsense. Joe Gratz has written a good, detailed explanation of why some recent criticisms are misdirected.

pax et bonum

Article posted at 1:42pm on 22 July 2005
Category: Computers, Struggling, General

Did you know that you can download a copy of Lawrence Lessig’s ‘Free Culture’ book from here
http://www.free-culture.cc/ under the creative commons license? As far as I’m aware he’s one of the peopel involved with the whole ‘copyleft’ movement.

James () (URL)
2:35pm on 22 July 2005

The advantage of the CC licences is that they’re not copyleft. That is, they don’t sign away all an author’s rights – they provide a granular approach to releasing certain rights while retaining others. They’re not for everyone, of course, but useful if you do want your work to be easily reused.

pax et bonum

[John] () (URL)
2:43pm on 22 July 2005

interesting, ta! I don’t know much about this stuff and as a (sometimes) musician it would probably be useful….

James () (URL)
3:08pm on 22 July 2005