Creative Commons brief outline.
S1244551
Kirk Stiffel
1501HUM
S1244551
Kirk Stiffel
1501HUM
The ability of a designer to share material in our society has gone through various transitions since the beginning of time. Creation of the wheel, fire, tools and weapons, these things evolved through the sharing and collaboration of ideas. Our modern society expanded and changed this concept into our current method of exchange of ideas, products and skills. The different cultures with their variations in politics, values and norms all have accepted the established concept of copyright. Whether an individual or collective culture, the method of copyright protecting of ideas and products has become the accepted legal system.
Copyright by definition, as viewed on Dictionary.com “is the exclusive right to make copies, license, and otherwise exploit a literary, musical, or artistic work, whether printed, audio, video, etc.: works granted such right by law on or after January 1, 1978, are protected for the lifetime of the author or creator and for a period of 50 years after his or her death.” In recent years the copyright method has been challenged and adjusted to suit the needs of an ever changing technological world of creators that stimulate idea growth by drawing on and adapting previous works.
The provision of alternative copyright options has been made possible through the creation of creative commons (CC), a non profit organization that has made the adaptation of creative material possible under this form of copyright agreement, such as the journals mentioned above. Another example as show below, is the Ben9gn (2007) twilight clip altered for Sci-Fi channel then again by an individual under the CC rules.
The original is protected under the standard copyright rules. ©2002-2003 Richard Brigante.You may not use anything on this page without express permission from Richard Brigante. URL http://www.distantcreations.com/twilightzone.html
Hoorn and Van Der Graaf (2006) had 355 authors of open access articles in biomedical central journals participate in an online survey. Of the participants 71% believed that authors should retain copyright, additionally, 72% believed authors should handle permissions to reuse their material. There is a great deal of debate on the copyright issue. Kim (2007) suggests that creative common (CC) licensing is adaptable enough to reflect individual creators needs and interests, while also serving the public interests of users. In contrast, Gillis et al. (2009) indicates CC is simply slapping a badge on to signify the originator using the license is considering intellectual property, policy, and other concerns. Furthermore, it is proposed the CC licenses circumvent the real problem of fixing copyright law and policy to represent public requirements in the 21st century.
The URL http://creativecommons.org/videos/get-creative provides a video of what creative commons is and how it was formed. On this page a pictorial representation of a creative common license is shown. Also a link is provided to a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full license).
The licenses available as displayed in the URL: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/ are below.
1. Attribution (cc by), “this license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.”
A creative common news letter provides an example shown on url: http://www.scribd.com/doc/4911579/CC-Newsletter-8-official-PDf viewed 12 Oct, 2010.
2. Attribution Share Alike (cc by-sa), ability to fabricate and adjust material for commercial reasons, with appropriate credit to creator and same license applied to the all new copies. In URL: http://www.jamendo.com/en/download/album/69025 a down loadable album is available within the cc by-sa licenses parameters.
3. Attribution No Derivatives (cc by-nd), “this license provides redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.” The URL: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_t_in_dc/ has several examples of material protected under this license.
4. Attribution Non-Commercial (cc by-nc), this license variant allows others to alter your work non-commercially, but while acknowledging you there is no requirement to license their version on the same terms.
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMlSa2a7O2M of Adrian Reef - Silent Cry (stereo lo-fi ) (cc)by-nc-nd
5. Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (cc by-nc-sa), is the ability to fabricate and adjust material for non-commercial reasons, with appropriate credit to creator and same license applied to the all new copies. Others can then access and share your work just like the by-nc-nd license, while additionally having ability to make variations to and re- productions of your work. New compositions created based on original material must incorporate the identical license, and continue to be non-commercial.
An example is, Michelle Thorne, October 24th, 2008, Hi-Q, the Romanian pop group, announced the first CC remix competition in Romania. Under the cc by-nc-sa license, participants in the competition can test their skills and generate a song the way they would like.
Also this URL http://creativecommons.cashmusic.org/examples/ is worth a look.
6. Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (cc by-nc-nd), “This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.”
Photo © Ingy the Wingy, cc-by-nd. URL http://www.flickr.com/photos/ingythewingy/3858948224/
In summary, creative commons provides flexible options to creators to protect their work while maintaining control and choice over how their creation is experienced. Contrary of alternative schools of thought as proposed by Gillis et al. (2009), until policy and legislation catches up with the fast pace of technologies, primarily with respect to online sharing of material, society through creative commons has the capacity to benefit from and utilize material provided, while recognizing artists willingness to share their innovative talent with the public at large.
References
Hoorn, E. And Van Der Graff, M. (2006). Copyright Issues in Open Access Research Journals, The Authors' Perspective. D-Lib Magazine, 12(2). DOI:10.1045
Gillis, G., Dames, K., Lessig, L., Geist, M., Masnick, M., Paley, N., Richards, R. And Ebert, R. (2009). Is Creative Commons Good for Copyright? Copycense Editorial.
Kim, M. (2007). The Creative Commons and copyright protection in the digital era: Uses of Creative Commons licenses. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), article 10.
(The following is just for interest - not a part of the essay)
The Matrix - Twilight Zone 1985 – 9 min duration.
URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7Y3hhduFIg
