Creative Commons launches

December 16, 2002 6:01 AM

Open Source Copyright.As a follow-up to this thread, Creative Commons has now officially launched. I'm quite interested to see the various content creators who take these licenses and run with them - amateur filmmakers, independent musicians, authors, writers, and technologists .....should have groups like the MPAA and RIAA quaking in their boots.
posted by bkdelong (17 comments total)

Why so? Creative Commons supports, as I understand it, the idea of intellectual property. They just happen to want to share their intellectual property under a certain set of terms. Seems like a splendid idea to me, and a professionally executed one at that.
posted by dagny at 7:35 AM on December 16, 2002

Woohoo!!!!!!

Seems like I've been waiting for this forever. 1000+ photos now using their Public Domain Dedication.

I love this part: "For your Public Domain Dedication to be valid, you must demonstrate by an "overt act" that you intend to turn your entire copyright in the work over to the public, with no conditions and no opportunity to recover. To perform such an "overt act", click the button below 5 times."

In other words, are you really fucking sure you want to completely toss this into the creative mix and let people do whatever their silly minds can think of with it?

Yes. I'm sure. Thank you.
posted by y6y6y6 at 7:39 AM on December 16, 2002

quaking in their boots
when you can buy all the government you need, there's no need to fear anything.
posted by quonsar at 7:47 AM on December 16, 2002

Let's not forget that our host has been rather involved with this brilliant thing.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 7:51 AM on December 16, 2002

Initially I was confused as to how this is different from GNU GPL. Then ecrivain found an explanation on the about us page, oddly enough not in the FAQ.
"Unlike the GNU GPL, Creative Commons licenses are not be designed for software, but rather for other kinds of creative works: websites, scholarship, music, film, photography, literature, courseware, etc."

The HTML tags seem to be based on the idea of google bombing, the flaw I see is that all links say Creative Commons License, I think it should be modified to include what type of license it is linked to.
posted by riffola at 7:54 AM on December 16, 2002

CC is a novel idea and I hope it is a success. It sure is an interesting use of click-wrap licenses. Kind of like a reverse click-wrap. It will be an interesting experiment to watch.
posted by anathema at 8:19 AM on December 16, 2002

"click-wrap". all lawyers should be summarily executed immediately.
posted by quonsar at 9:28 AM on December 16, 2002

yeah, shouldn't that be GNU/CC? ho ho ho!

also, i think it'd be cool if they set up an endowment (perhaps in concert with the gov't?) to purchase patents, copyrights, etc.. to place in the public domain/turn copyleft or whatnot :D
posted by kliuless at 10:02 AM on December 16, 2002

riffola: ...I think it should be modified to include what type of license it is linked to.
I completely agree. I would like to see the CC symbols next to the link to the license. The graphics are nice, they should help identify CC licenses easily.

Does anybody know how will they get funding for the next (let's say 5-10) years? Will they have traffic problems with everybody (hopefully) linking to them?
posted by MzB at 10:11 AM on December 16, 2002

ironically, there really is a GNU/CC. the gnu common compiler (once known as the gnu c compiler, when it was less multi-dimensional than its current form).
posted by moz at 10:17 AM on December 16, 2002

riffola and MzB, the specific licenses are included as RDF, so if you view source on a page, you'll see which license someone picked. That was done so that someone, somewhere can someday produce an RDF-powered search engine that indexes pages it finds on the web featuring our license code.

As far as I know, we have a pretty good bit of funding from the MacCarthur Foundation that should last a while. After that, I'm fairly confident we can continue to get sponsorship in some way or another, as we'll be a non-profit artists and end-users like.
posted by mathowie at 10:26 AM on December 16, 2002

mathowie: Thanks for the answer. Indeed, adding all the details in the RDF data is nice, but I still think the symbols should be placed next to the item of interest: it helps to quickly identify the type of license (without leaving that webpage), and to spread the news about CC. Even more, they should make the icons (and the link to the licenses) available as pictures to be imported in MSOffice, etc. In other words, to make it as easier as possible for all types of users.

(btw, nice job with your photos)
posted by MzB at 11:00 AM on December 16, 2002

Yeah, the easier it gets for creative people who aren't totally clear on the idea to get up to speed on what this all means, the better. (I have some reading to do.)

After that, it's just a matter of educating those who'd use it as to how this stuff all works. Is there some kind of information campaign in the works so that these concepts can get out into the rest of the world?
posted by chicobangs at 1:05 PM on December 16, 2002

Initially I was confused as to how this is different from GNU GPL. Then ecrivain found an explanation on the about us page, oddly enough not in the FAQ.

Most of Slashdot doesn't get it either.

At least one of the great things about the CC licenses is that they use the same language as U.S copyright law rather than language derived from earlier EULAs. For example while the GPL focuses on defining rights to copy and create derivative works, the CC licenses explicitly give permission to phonorecord, perform, display, and transmit the work digitally.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:59 PM on December 16, 2002

Thanks for the info Matt. When I tried to get the code snippet last night I got a 404, but it works now, might have been a hiccup. Since I hadn't seen the code meant to be used, I didn't see the RDF part.
posted by riffola at 5:23 PM on December 16, 2002

Most of Slashdot doesn't get it either.

Slashdot, in one sentence.
posted by websavvy at 5:44 PM on December 16, 2002

It's nice to see that the Public Library of Science is using the Creative Commons model for its own Licence that will allow paper authors to retain copyright, but also allow third parties to reproduce their work.
posted by adrianhon at 6:44 PM on December 16, 2002