Creative Commons

From DigitalRhetoricCollaborative

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization which allows its users to use free legal tools as licenses in order to protect the originality of their creative works while allowing the users to share other people's work within the legal context of the free tools as well. CC licences are intended to work worldwide and within existing boundaries of copyright law; they do not replace copyright altogether though. The licences set out for the re-use conditions of someone making use of another’s material.^[1] CC has many worldwide affiliate organizations and partners, so it can provide standardized and scrutinized license texts, translation into languages and adaptations for various jurisdictions for its users. ^[2] CC's legal tools are initially divided into two categories: first, a set of six licences, which are designed to help authors manage the exploitation of their creations and, second, the public domain tools, to facilitate authors in placing their works to the public domain or to label and discover works that are already in the public domain.^[3]

Contents 1 History 2 Copyright and Licensing 2.1 The Licenses 3 Creative Commons in Education 4 Debates and Discussions 4.1 Cultural Effects 5 External Links 6 References

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History

• Creative Commons was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson, and Eric Eldred. A board of directors leads Creative Commons today; the board of directors is comprised of investors, philanthropists, entrepreneurs, and professionals in many fields like education, technology, and law. ^[4]

• In 2002, CC released its first set of Copyright Licenses that were free to the public. In the years following the release, Creative Commons grew exponentially and was ported to over 50 affiliate networks.^[5]

• In 2004, there was an estimated 4.7 million licensed by the end of the year. In that year, CC License 2.0 released. ^[6]

• Then by 2005, Creative commons grew to over 20 million licensed works and License 2.5 was released before year-end for improvements of the License 2.0. ^[7]

• In 2007, the licenses in use reached 90 million. License 3.0 was released. The education project was released. It created an infrastructure to make education tools and projects easier to use and share. ^[8]

• In 2008, Lawrence Lessig stepped down from his position of CEO. ^[9]

• After years of continuous growth, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia Foundation projects migrated to use CC BY-SA in 2009.^[10] Licenses in use reached 350 million. Wikipedia migrated to Creative Commons: Attribution – Share-A-like as its content licensing.^[11]

• In 2013, Creative Commons created 4.0 Public Licenses which marked an influential role for the Open Content Movement. The new licenses aimed to be an international tool that fostered the development of the semi-commons. ^[12]

• As of 2014, 882 Million licenses in use. ^[13]

• Today in 2015, there are more than 100 affiliates working in 75 jurisdictions around the world for Creative Commons. ^[14]

Copyright and Licensing

Creative Commons promotes copyright reform instead of going against it. Their website states that “while free licensing is important, it is not enough to reform copyright alone.” Creative Commons serves as an alternative to copyright. ^[15]

The CC method of protecting authorship rights falls between open source and full copyright protection. Using the Creative Commons license, an author can choose to seek attribution, limit modifications, prohibit commercial uses, or demand that others similarly share any work derived from the protected material. ^[16]

Lawrence Lessig wanted CC to be in the middle of two extreme views to copyright. He describes the views as "one demanding that all rights be controlled, and the other arguing that none should be controlled. Creative Commons provides a third option that allows authors to pick and choose which rights they want to control and which they want to grant to others. ^[17]

In 2009, CC released a new infrastructure for licensing called CCO that allows owners like designers and artists of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and place their work in the public domain, so others may reuse or edit the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law. CC0 is a special license used to specifically work with the public domain. Creative Commons users choose from a range of permissions available while retaining copyright. ^[18]

The Licenses

The CC licenses are intended for the copyright owner to allow certain types of usage, such as copying or modifying the contents while constricting other forms of use, for instance by prohibiting commercial reuse. These licenses differentiate in the amount of restrictions placed on the reuse of the work. Another important aspect to these licenses is that placing CC license code on digital content not only provides a human readable license, but also provides a machine readable version of the license which enables computers to determine how the content may be reused. Machine readable licenses enable others to create automated services based on the type of reuse that is granted by the content owner. ^[19]

The licences themselves are made up of three layers: the common deeds or human readable code which sets out simplified terms of re-use, the machine-readable code which standardizes the format for inclusion of the licence or citation in metadata, and underpinning this is the actual legal code. ^[20]

These main licenses, permitting free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work, are as follows:

• CCO No Rights Reserved, providing an opportunity to opt out of copyright and database protection

• CC BY Attribution, allowing others to distribute or further build upon the creator's work, even for commercial purposes, as long as credit for the original work is given

• CC BY SA Attribution or ShareAlike, allowing others to build upon the creator's work, even for commercial purposes, as long as the original work is credited and the new creation is licensed under the same terms as the original

• CC BY ND Attribution - No Derivatives, allowing for the redistribution, either commercially or non-commercially, as long as the work is not changed, and credit to the original is given

• CC BY NC - Non Commercial, allowing others to build upon the original work, for noncommercial purposes. The new work must acknowledge the creator, although as it is noncommercial, the derivative work does not need to be licensed on the same terms

• CC BY NC SA Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike, allowing others to build upon the original work, for non-commercial purposes, as long as the original is credited, and the license of the new creation is identical to the original

• CC BY NC ND Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives. Considered the most restrictive license in the set, others may only download and share original work, as long as credit is given, but cannot change the original in any way or use it for commercial purposes.^[21]

Creative Commons in Education

The role of CC in classrooms has shown to play a positive influence for knowledge sharing. Previous research findings reveal that adopting the CC mechanism is helpful in shaping student perception of and interaction with the environment they are engaged in. For example, by using CC for collaborative projects reveals that students manifest a higher level of mutual support under a CC-integrated collaborative environment. The CC mechanism has mainly been employed to support informal online learning contexts such as the online discussion forum. Furthermore, students are engaged in the same learning task and sharing of course work may influence their learning performance assessment. ^[22] For schools, these options provide useful ways to share their own work but also convenient ways to avoid copyright violations in work produced by their teachers and students. It is important to remember, though, that these alternatives are only opt-in presently. It is up to the user to understand the specific license on any work before making copies. While these alternatives are useful, their application is still very limited. Standard copyright protection still applies to the vast majority of books, videos, images, and software—virtually all the content that schools use to aid in teaching, except for the doctrine of fair use which allows some flexibility. ^[23]

Debates and Discussions

Several authors have discussed the legal context around Creative Commons Licenses. Many criticize the “climate of overly broad ownership rights for creative works”, and argue that it hinders the use and reuse of creative works. The complexity of the current copyright system leads to high costs, which disadvantages individuals who do not have the same financial resources as corporations. Broadly applying Creative Commons licenses helps to create a “semi-commons of creative works” which enables a greater and more diverse usage—to the benefit of society. Other authors are slightly different in their approach, and try to understand the motives of CC licensors through surveys and interviews. Again, the conflict of interests of the different stakeholders are debated. Furthermore, some content owners place emphasis on the public benefits, while others are motivated by more personal reasons. Some authors arrive at more optimistic conclusions regarding Creative Commons licenses by looking at CC licenses and the changing role of intermediaries. The licenses are made machine readable, which opens new possibilities for those who enable all kinds of transactions based on the licensed works. The image sharing website Flickr.com is a well-known example: it enables end users to find pictures published under licenses that allow reuse.^[24]

Cultural Effects

Web-based interactive technologies challenge traditional frameworks for the study of human discourse. Researchers such as Lessig himself presented layered and active/passive audience models to examine Internet communication from a legal and economic perspective. A complement to these frameworks is to examine social media using a rhetorical-based approach – communicative informatics. It is through such open and equal participation "that we will best secure both robust democratic discourse and individual expressive freedom”. The enclosures that limit communication in the Internet commons by ISP liability, regulatory requirements, patents, copyright, database protections, and other legal frameworks; and the openness of online communication provided by wireless networks, free software, The Creative Commons, and the widespread social disdain for copyright. These ideas of communication examine the rhetorical content of the active audience; the human computer interaction, and database information systems. This model, communicative informatics, focuses on rhetoric, persuasion, creativity, advertising, and corporate control of communication in social media. Privacy has decreased and creativity on the Internet is not as free because of regulation. However, creativity has changed in a positive direction. One reason is economic. Audience activity and creativity is needed in order for corporate social media to be profitable. The Internet has not fundamentally changed people’s lives, but some research suggests that life and death decisions can occur due to online heath persuasion. No longer can we understand personal and mass communication without considering the new multi-channel, multi-directional, multi-modal, and multi-time (synchronous and asynchronous) communication formats that are processed and analyzed by corporate information systems. Analysis of online communication must integrate two disciplines: human communication and information sciences. Merging these disciplines provides a more holistic understanding of how database driven, post-mass media have an impact on a globally networked society by facilitating human communication through complex information systems.^[25]

External Links

Creative Commons Website

U.S. Copyright Website

References

1. ↑ Gulley, N. (2013). Creative Commons: challenges and solutions for researchers; a publisher's perspective of copyright in an open access environment. Insights: The UKSG Journal, 26(2), 168-173. doi:10.1629/2048-7754.107
2. ↑ Hagedorn, G., Mietchen, D., Morris, R. A., Agosti, D., Penev, L., Berendsohn, W. G., & Hobern, D. (2011). Creative Commons licenses and the non-commercial condition: Implications for the re-use of biodiversity information. Zookeys, 150127-149. doi:10.3897/zookeys.150.2189
3. ↑ Giannopoulou, A. (2014). The Creative Commons licences through moral rights provisions in French law. International Review Of Law, Computers & Technology, 28(1), 60-80.
4. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/about/history
5. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
6. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
7. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
8. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
9. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
10. ↑ Hagedorn, G., Mietchen, D., Morris, R. A., Agosti, D., Penev, L., Berendsohn, W. G., & Hobern, D. (2011). Creative Commons licenses and the non-commercial condition: Implications for the re-use of biodiversity information. Zookeys, 150127-149. doi:10.3897/zookeys.150.2189
11. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
12. ↑ Myška, M. (2015). The new Creative Commons 4.0 licenses. Grey Journal (TGJ), 1158-62. "CREATIVE COMMONS. 4.0 [online]. Accessed 8 October 2014]. Available from:https://wiki.creativecommons.org/4.0"
13. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/about/history
14. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/about/history
15. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/about/reform
16. ↑ Bathon, J. (2013). Staying on the Right Side of Copyright in Education. T H E Journal, 40(12), 21-24.
17. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5719
18. ↑ http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0
19. ↑ Snijder, R. (2015). Better Sharing Through Licenses? Measuring the Influence of Creative Commons Licenses on the Usage of Open Access Monographs.Journal Of Librarianship & Scholarly Communication, 3(1), 1-21. doi:10.7710/2162-3309.1187
20. ↑ Gulley, N. (2013). Creative Commons: challenges and solutions for researchers; a publisher's perspective of copyright in an open access environment. Insights: The UKSG Journal, 26(2), 168-173. doi:10.1629/2048-7754.107
21. ↑ Pejšová, P., & Vaska, M. (2015). Free Licences and Creative Commons: A Powerful Tool for Open Access Publishing in Grey Literature. Grey Journal (TGJ), 11(2), 89-97.
22. ↑ Chen-Chung, L., Chia-Ching, L., Chun-Yi, C., & Po-Yao, C. (2014). Knowledge Sharing among University Students Facilitated with a Creative Commons Licensing Mechanism: A Case Study in a Programming Course. Journal Of Educational Technology & Society, 17(3), 154-167.
23. ↑ Bathon, J. (2013). Staying on the Right Side of Copyright in Education. T H E Journal, 40(12), 21-24.
24. ↑ Snijder, R. (2015). Better Sharing Through Licenses? Measuring the Influence of Creative Commons Licenses on the Usage of Open Access Monographs.Journal Of Librarianship & Scholarly Communication, 3(1), 1-21. doi:10.7710/2162-3309.1187
25. ↑ Gallant, L. M., & Boone, G. M. (2011). Communicative Informatics: An Active and Creative Audience Framework of Social Media. Triplec (Cognition, Communication, Co-Operation): Open Access Journal For A Global Sustainable Information Society, 9(2), 231-246.