In this weeks blog I will be discussing a project which is itself a “golden mean” between the harsh stipulations of traditional copyright and the free-for-all of putting one’s work into the public domain – The Creative Commons.
The Creative Commons is an innovative project which gives authors the option to declare“some rights reserved.” Unlike the black-and-white totalitarianism of traditional copyright ( with “all rights reserved”, which can seriously stunt the life of a work) or the anarchy which results when no rights are retained (and an author’s work may be exploited), Creative Commons aims to protect the work while still encouraging transformative, innovative uses of it.
Creative Commons was in part inspired by the Free Software Foundation’s GNU General Public License first project (GNU GPL), however, unlike the GNU GPL, Creative Commons does not deal primarily with software : instead, it’s focus is on the licensing of other cultural commodities such as photography, literature, artworks, film, websites, scholarship etc.
Getting a Creative Commons license for one’s work (whether it be a photograph or a flash cartoon) is a great way to to retain one’s copyright while still licensing the work as free for certain uses on certain conditions. Allowing for a fair amount of freedom can keep your work “alive” for longer.
To give an example, imagine you take a photograph of a sunset. If you were to get it copyrighted and have “all rights reserved”, anyone wanting to use your photograph will have to get your permission, and possibly pay you to use it. This can be a huge discouragement to anyone wanting to use your work, and it may mean that your work never really has the chance to “evolve”, or to be more widely circulated. If, however, you are not terribly concerned about getting money from anyone using your work, and you opt for “some rights reserved”, you may find that your photograph exceeds its bounds, and is used in a variety of interesting and exciting ways (for example, maybe someone will incorporate your photograph into a webdesign, or a painting).
There are four conditions which one can apply to one’s work with a Creative Commons license:
-attribution requirement: the work may be reproduced and redistributed as long as credit is given
- no commercial use: the work may not be used for commecial purposes, unless permission is granted
- no derivative works: work may be copied and redistributed, but may bot be altered or transformed
- share alike option: people who use the work must make it available on the same terms given in the license
As media producers, we are often involved in personal side-projects – from designers making digital artworks in their spare time to print journo’s writing a book on the side – and its important to think very carefully about how to license one’s work before sharing it with the world.
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3 comments:
A good blog. At first i was worried it was a bit too technical, but your use of solid examples really helped with understanding the issue!
Hey lauri - hmmm good to know about the creative commons thing - good to keep in mind! nice entry, I liked the personal touch at the end - would be cool if u included more of that:)
What do you think about the argument that some companies supposedly don't mind abit of piracy as it tends to create hype about their products, before they hit the shelves?
Is there any truth or logic in this argument?
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