The Future of Licensing

Introduction

The world has gone a relatively long way from copyright and open source licenses since the emergence of digital creativity with the development of more specific and user-friendly ways to distribute one’s original work. Formed in 2001, Creative Commons is a relatively recently developed organization that has revolutionized the way people share their original creations. Described in the following article is Creative Commons’ description and aims, how the organization’s system of licensing works, the types of licenses people can adapt for their creations, and the organization’s significance in society.

About Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization founded by Lawrence Lessig as a response to the lack of flexibility in licensing original works. In the past, there were only two ways in which one can license their work: through absolute copyright, or through the public domain. A lot of people found “all rights reserved” too restrictive as it made illegal the distribution of original work without demanding for permission, as well as the modification or derivation of material from the work itself. The public domain, however, was seen by a lot of people as too liberal as it did not protect their original work from being claimed by someone else and from being modified or distributed against their will. As a response, the creators of Creative Commons sought to create a licensing system along the middle of copyright and the public domain which would guarantee the ownership of original works while expanding the ways in which one could use someone else’s intellectual property.

Creative Commons' Aims

Creative Commons aims to increase access to and sharing of intellectual property by generating legal licenses that allow creators to be specific in the way their works are used and shared. Creative Commons’ website allow users to generate their own license based on their answers to questions regarding the way they want their work distributed and what others can do with it. Once the questions on the site have been answered, an HTML code would be provided to users that would display a symbol of the license that best fits their need in their web page, that also doubles as a link to the website explaining the implications of the provided license.

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons licenses are classified under six variations, ranging from the most liberal to the most restrictive, customized to suit anyone’s wants or needs regarding the distribution of their original work. The obligatory Attribution license lets others do whatever they please with your work, as long as they give you credit as the original creator of the work. The Attribution license, being the most basic, can be combined with three other additions to customize the restrictions placed upon what others can do with your work. The Non-Commercial addition prohibits others to distribute your work for monetary gain. The No Derivatives addition prohibits others from making derivatives – works based on your original work. The Share-Alike addition obliges others to place derivatives under the same license as the original work. Aside from single combinations, there are two double-combinations possible: Attribution/Non-Commercial/Share-Alike, and the most restrictive, Attribution/Non-Commercial/No Derivatives.

Creative Commons in Society

Many people wonder about how Creative Commons benefits today’s society. With the myriad of modern advances in technology for creating, sharing, sampling, and reusing content in numerous ways, many people believe that the traditional “all rights reserved” approach to copyright protection is way past its expiration date. As revolutionary tools such as blogs and online encyclopedias increasingly gain popularity and audience for their use as educational resources, the choice between absolute and libre copyright protection becomes a hindrance as to the true potential that these tools hold. Creative Commons places the power into the hands of content owners and the contents’ users, creating a society in which permissions rule instead of restrictions, thus fostering the creative aspects of individuals to benefit society as a whole.

A huge problem with “all rights reserved” copyright is that people who want to use another’s intellectual property are obliged to ask for formal permission in order that they could use it. Although it is possible to attempt to seek the content’s original creator, there is no guarantee that he or she would be found at all, nor is there a way to accurately determine whether or not their work is protected by a copyright license. Creative Commons resolves this problem by immediately providing users with the conditions under which that particular work can be used, removing the complications that come with having to look for the content’s original creator. This approach greatly simplifies sharing, use, and distribution of content – processes which had previously been exclusive to the more legal-savvy members of society.

Creative Commons Online

Although most popular media at this moment are still under “all rights reserved” the amount of media under Creative Commons licenses is steadily increasing, providing the world with a large pool of material upon which to express their creativity. For example, one popular website that employs the use of Creative Commons licenses is Flickr, which claims itself to be “the best online photo management and sharing application in the world.” With the help of Creative Commons, Flickr aims to “help people make their content available to the people who matter to them”, and “enable new ways of organizing photos and videos.” To facilitate the process of searching for Creative Commons licensed work, Creative Commons’ CC Search was developed. The creation of an exclusive search engine greatly decreases the likelihood of accidentally committing copyright infringement by filtering out work that does not meet the categories set by the user.

Conclusion

Despite its very humble beginnings, Creative Commons’ influence in today’s world continues to grow through word-of-mouth, website advertisements, and especially through web forums, where technological topics in society are discussed and points of view are exchanged. Nonetheless, there remains quite a long way until the full realization of Creative Commons’ goals. Every single time someone chooses to put his or her work under a Creative Commons license contributes to the organization’s cause, and for the good of the digital community. The Creative Commons slogan sums it all, “Share now. Shape tomorrow.”