Essay

Creative Commons is both a solution and yet another failure to deal with authorship and copyright on the internet. Discuss and give examples.

Creative Commons (CC) is a nonprofit organisation with files that can be used to create web sites and other media, free of charge. This essay addresses the question of whether Creative Commons is a solution or a failure in dealing with authorship and copyright on the internet. In today’s world it is normal to upload almost everything one has created to the internet. It can be from private life or school sources.  This essay will first define the topic and provide some background research. Next it will provide an analysis of secondary research, focusing on the question of whether Creative Commons is a good solution or a failure when dealing with copyright on the internet. Also what is successful and finally it will give some examples of the issue, the advantages and disadvantages.  Creative Commons has been in the media lately, but not everybody knows what it is and how you can take advantages of it (http://www.youtube.com).

Creative Commons (CC) is defined as an organization that has an option to copyrights by filling in the gap between full copyright, in which no use is permitted unless granted, and public domain, where permission is not required at all (http://www.pcmag.com).

Creative commons was founded in 2001, by James Boyle, Michael Carroll, Lawrence Lessing, Hal Abelson, Eric Saltzman and Eric Eldred at Harvard Law School (http://www.pcmag.com). Their first free copyright licenses for the public did not come out before December 2002 ( HYPERLINK "http://creativecommons.org/" http://creativecommons.org/). The first priority was to create a set of legally trustworthy licenses that the author could choose from (Seadle, 2004). The information to the consumers also had to be clear in terms of permission and ease of locating the page. CC is led by a core of directors, experts and science professors and is still growing around the world. From 2002 to 2008 it has grown to 130 millions CC licenses ( HYPERLINK "http://creativecommons.org/" http://creativecommons.org/). Pursuant to Andreassen (2005) the Creative Commons project appears to be a success in most of the countries. It gives individual and groups a more free way to communicate with different cultures.

For a long time there has been uncertainly as to what to do with uploaded contents on the internet. It is widely believed that anything on the internet is common property. Mahesh and Mittal (2008) argue that it is a misunderstanding that content available on the internet can be used by anybody without a premission of the owner. It is almost impossible to get a guarantee when it comes to copyright questions (Seadle 2001) That is why it is really important to clarify, and make certain, that the publishing companies are well conversant with copyrights.

Creative Commons licenses are expressed in three different formats:

(1) The Commons Deed is a summary of the key terms of the actual license, basically, what others can and cannot do with the work. (2)The Legal Code is the actual license; a document designed to be enforced in a court of law. (3)The metadata describes the key license elements that apply to a piece of content to enable discovery through CC enabled search engines ( HYPERLINK "http://creativecommons.org/" http://creativecommons.org/).

By studying information in relation to Creative Commons on the Internet and reading journals it is evident that all kinds of works are protected by copyright law, including books, websites, blogs, photographs, films, videos and songs ( HYPERLINK "http://www.sitepoint.com" http://www.sitepoint.com). Creative commons is used by all kinds of people and companies from the entire world. Everything from major media companies, top scientist to regular people ( HYPERLINK "http://creativecommons.org/" http://creativecommons.org/).Copyright gives the author of the original work all rights of publication, distribution and adaptation of his work. Creative Commons helps to license work freely for certain uses, on certain conditions; or dedicate works to the public domain. ( HYPERLINK "http://creativecommons.org/" http://creativecommons.org/) But this good is not shared in common itself, nor owned in common, nor responsible to the common itself. It is left to the private people and groups who permit reuse (Andersson 2005).

Disadvantages and Advantages

In the internet world, there can be certain ambiguities in the copyright regulations. This can result in downloading, reproducing and modifying the contents (Yang, Liao and Chen, 2007). Creative Commons license cannot stop someone, who has obtained others work from using it according to that license. Nor do they provide the ability to control anything that is not protected by copyright law, such as facts and ideas. CC does not provide legal advice or legal services to assist anyone with enforcing Creative Commons licenses. It is a legal self-help site that offers free form-based legal documents to use however one wishes.

Creative Commons has helped enable participatory media (Cathy Kirkman, 2007). The authors have the right to determine when, where and in what form the work goes public (Abdulla, 2008 ) An arthur can stop distributing work under a Creative Commons license at any time. Not everyone has a clear license to their work and this will create confusion for other consumers. The Creative Commons web site allows the author to build the HTML- codes for the license by itself (Seadle, 2004). Creative Commons created a solution, a legal licensing toolkit, in the manner that the open source software licenses gave developers tools to share their code. ( HYPERLINK "http://www.svmedialaw.com" http://www.svmedialaw.com) Money can still be made form work using Creative Commons. If someone wants to see someone eles work, they need to pay a fee( HYPERLINK "http://creativecommons.org/" http://creativecommons.org/).

Conclusions

In conclusion, the research showed that the Creative Commons is more a solution then a failure for most of the individuals. However, advances in technology makes it possible to quickly and easily copy digital content without the copyright owner’s knowledge, without the use of intermediaries, and to transmit this content to be used by multiple users. This is a fast growing organization around the world and people will increasingly become more familiar with Creative Commons licenses. Hopefully when people are more common, they will give copyrights more deference.

However, I have to admit I did not know what Creative Commons was before I took the challenge and wrote about this topic.  No doubt, it has generated great interest for future use.

Reference:

Abdulla A. 2008 “Copyright and knowledge advancement: a case study on the UAE copyright law” viewed 21 October Library Management 29 (6/7) 461-472

Andreassen, T. B., 2005 On the “Creative Commons”: a critique of the commons without commonalty. Is the Creative Commons missing something? Viewed 19 October Free Software Magazine Issue 5

Chyan Y. , Hsien J. L. and Chung, C.C., 2009 “Implementing digital copyright on the internet through an enhanced creative common license protocol” viewed 19 October The Electronic Library 27 (1) 20-30

Creative Commons 2009 viewed 19 October < HYPERLINK "http://creativecommons.org/" http://creativecommons.org/>

Kirkman, C. 2007 Media Law viewed 19 October < HYPERLINK "http://www.svmedialaw.com/industry-events- happy-5th-birthday-creative-commons.html" http://www.svmedialaw.com/industry-events- happy-5th-birthday-creative-commons.html>

Mahesh G.and Mittal R., 2009 Digital content creation and copyright issues, viewed 20 October The Electronic Library 27 (4) 676-683

PcMag 2009 viewed 18 October  

Seadle, M., 2001 “Copyright in the networked world: copyright status facts.” viewed 19 October Library Hi Tech 19 (1) 99-103

Seadle, M., 2005 “Copyright in the networked world: author’s rights.” viewed 19 October Library Hi Tech 23 (1) 130-136

Site Point 2009 viewed 20 October < HYPERLINK "http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/04/30/30-creative-commons-sources/" http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/04/30/30-creative-commons-sources/>

Youtube, “Creative Commons” 2007 viewed 19 October < HYPERLINK "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Q5jsQNnAk&feature=fvst" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Q5jsQNnAk&feature=fvst>