Creative Commons is not an alternative to copyright, but it is likely the best way to deal with copyright in the 21st century. Creative Commons provides a range of licenses from more restrictive to more open that serve as an alternative to traditional "all rights reserved" copyright. The licenses allow for sharing and use of creative works while still providing attribution to creators. Creative Commons has become an international standard and framework that is adapted to local legislation.
5. Copyleft
• Protection of the (open access to the) work
replaces the protection of the distributors’
profits
• Image source:
http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/research/llian
g/open_content_guide
19. The Prelinger Archives
Caption:
Clip #:
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Dog eagerly awaits being fed. He sits up and begs
83547542
Rights-ready
Prelinger
Archive Films
00:00:08:11
35mm 486 29.97i More information
SD digital download NTSC
SD digital download PAL
Other digital and analogue formats available. Please
contact us for assistance.
Not released. More information
Is Creative Commons an alternative to copyright?Image source:Creative Commons Swag Contest 2007_2 by TillarX (Tyler Stefanich), CC-BY 2.0, http://www.flickr.com/photos/tylerstefanich/2117607887/
No, it is not. Creative Commons is *based* on copyright legislation. That means, Creative Commons licenses are only good to use for works that fall under copyright protection, typically “works of art”, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
Copyright legislation is national legislation. There are certain international conventions (such as the Berne convention, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works) that stipulate common principles.However, national legislation differs in details:what can be protectedterms of protectionand various other issues. For details see e.g. the public domain calculators page here http://wiki.okfn.org/PublicDomainCalculators
Creative Commons stands in the tradition of copyleft – i.e. not primarily protecting the monopoly of the rights owner, but primarily protecting (cultural) works
Creative Commons are part of the copyleft universe.Image source:Cover of “A Guide To Open Content Licences”, http://www.pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/research/lliang/open_content_guide, by Femke Snelting, CC-BY-NC-SA
Creative Commons provide licenses that allow people to use otherwise copyrighted works under certain conditions.For a history of Creative Commons, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_commonsImage Source:dsc05797.jpg by Michael Linksvayer (mlinksva), CC-BY 2.0http://www.flickr.com/photos/mlinksva/3105627476/
Creative Commons is an international endeavour, see here for where it has been ported to: http://creativecommons.org/international/image source:Airborne by Berne Guerrero, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ph/
Porting means translating the licensesin terms of languagein terms of legal systemimage source:CC Hong Kong Launch by Ryanne Lai, Hong Kong (flickr.com/photos/laihiu/2972008480)
Creative Commons licenses consist of three partsthe Commons Deed, a description in laymen terms (called “user readabla”)the Legal Code, the legally binding text of the license (called “lawyer readable”)the Digital Code, a semantic web system that allows for adding meta-data and RDFa identifiers to works so the license terms are “machine readable”source:http://creativecommons.org/international/
This is an example of a Commons Deed in Dutch, conforming to the Dutch copyright legislation
The same in English (still conforming to the Dutch copyright legislation)
This is the legal code … in Dutch
Examples of the digital code
For the definition of the symbols, check this page: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/Additionally, combined “commercial” and CC licensing is possible with CC (see http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Ccplus)And there is a “Public Domain Dedication” tool (see http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC0)
Use of CC licenses – excerpt from this movie: Media That Matter, Commonscreative-MediaThatMattersACCCaseStudy347.m4v,CC-BY, from http://creativecommons.org/videos/media-that-matters, licensed under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/
This is an example, how open content (public domain or CC licensed) can be sold profitably. The story is here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597357 (download the paper and go to page 10 to read it).source:Excerpt from Handy, Jam (Producer) (1937). Chevrolet Leader News, Vol. 3, No. 1. Available online at http://archive.org/details/Chevrole1937
see slide 17source:Excerpt from Handy, Jam (Producer) (1937). Chevrolet Leader News, Vol. 3, No. 1. Available online at http://archive.org/details/Chevrole1937
see slide 17source:Dog eagerly awaits being fed. He sits up and begs, Clip #: 83547542, http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/83547542/Archive-Films