Raiden's Realm: Creative Commons 101: Learning, understanding, and using

Creative Commons 101: Learning, understanding, and using (Page 1 of 1)

Written by Steve Lake
Posted on: Jun 22, 2009 at 10:45am
Section: Tutorials
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Now anybody who's ever been in the tech world has likely heard of free software licenses such as the ever famous GPL, as well as other open source licensing systems. But far fewer have heard of Creative Commons.

This is somewhat because it's not exactly understood, and others don't see a need for it. And that's understandable. For example, in the US, any work you create is immediately copyrighted by default. All you need to do is prove you're the creator, and the rest is cake.

This system of “instant copyright” was spawned by the media giants who were afraid that everyone from their biggest competitors to the little guy might “steal their previous stuff” from under their noses. While the system might indeed do that, it's created a goldmine for many of the little guys they wanted to crush in the process.

By having instant copyrights, you don't have to go through the expensive legal process of getting an “official” copyright. You merely have to be able to successfully defend your ownership in court. And while that may not seem hard, there are still ways in which this instant copyright can be defeated.

And that's all fine and dandy, but with the advent of the internet, your work no longer has just local exposure, but potentially world wide exposure as well. And since not all copyright laws are created equal, you need something that works wherever you go.

Enter Creative Commons. It's like a copyright system for the world. It has the same advantages as a custom designed and written distribution license, and it's legal worldwide. So no matter what country your work is distributed in, the same rules apply to everyone.

But Creative Commons isn't just another Open Source license. It's not for software. CC has been created for dealing with the licensing of intellectual works. IE, Music, Movies, Books, Research Papers, Pictures, etc. In other words, anything that can be covered by copyright, can be licensed through Creative Commons.

And the best part of the CC licensing system is, you don't have to be a legal expert to understand it. (sorry lawyers) In a sense, it's legalize for the common man. It's primary goal is to help simplify the effort of sharing works without requiring a complicated legal process or any middlemen.

So just like the GPL does for software, CC does for intellectual property. But where the GPL has 3 versions, and there are dozens of sub-versions and derivative licenses, CC only has six. They are:

Attribution
Attribution-NoDerivs
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
Attribution-NonCommercial
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Attribution-ShareAlike

Each license gives the user a different level of access to the work under it's protection, while allowing the creator to maintain their copyright on their work. This is a LOT less than was available in the past, as the license underwent a major simplification not long back.

There are four major parts to the license, each of which affects how each license type works. The first is Attribution. This is the only element common to all six licenses. This very simply says, “If you're gonna use my stuff, you have to give me credit in the way I choose.”

Really, if you're gonna use someone else's stuff, you really need to give them credit anyways. But this just makes sure you do. And if this particular license part is used by itself, as it is in the “Attribution” license, you're free to pretty much do whatever you want with the work, so long as credit for the original or “parent” work is given as requested.

The second part is Share Alike. This one tells others that they are free to make derivative works and share them, but their works must have the same license as the work they were created from.

The third part is Noncommercial. This one is pretty self explanatory. You're not allowed to use the work, or any derivative for any commercial, money making purpose. It is very similar in many ways to the Attribution part of the license, except that it covers commercial use rather than attribution.

And the fourth and final part is No Derivative Works. This basically says, you're free to share all you like, but you cannot create anything based off the original work, period. Of course, legally parodies are excluded, but for everything else the rule applies without question.

So in the end, the six licenses I listed above use one or more of these in combination to outline the rights of the creator and speed up the process of determining what you can and cannot do without permission. And yes, I said, without permission.

If someone wants to do something with your work that's outside of the license terms, they can simply contact you and get your permission to do whatever it is they want. If you've licensed your work as “noncommercial” through CC, that doesn't prevent someone from getting your permission to use the work commercially. The only difference is, they have to get either a special license, or written permission to do so with terms specific to the individual.

So for example, if you published a book or a movie under CC, you could still get it published and distributed commercially if you wanted to. CC wouldn't prevent that. That's because CC does not wave any of the legal rights the owner has over their works. As stated above, it simply provides a simplified license for distribution that allows anyone to know your wishes at a glance.

The Creative Commons licenses page covers these in more detail and even gives some of the legal code used to back these up. And yes, there's legal code involved. Even though these are simplified for easy understanding, they do have a nice piece of legal meat to back them up.

The Creative Commons website also has a long list of case studies where CC was used, as well as news, downloads, and other information. I use Creative Commons here on the site both for our regular articles, as well as several of the novels in my writing section.

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