Creativecommons Ccplus Overview For The World Wide Web Eng
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Creative CommonsCreativecommons Ccplus Overview For The World Wide Web Eng
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Creative CommonsCC and CC+ Overview
for the World Wide Web
http://creativecommons.org/projects/ccplus
Creative Commons (CC) provides free copyright licenses which For example, an artist might license a song on his web page.
empower authors and creators to mark their creativity with the That webpage would display the CC license icon
freedoms they intend it to carry. In this document we describe
conceptually a technology we’ve developed to enable a simple
click-through to rights or opportunities beyond those offered in
the standard CC licenses. With this capability, it is simple for with code that is linked to a “Commons Deed”:
rights holders to marry standard CC licenses with other options
beyond those provided within a CC license. For example, a
licensor offering content under a CC BY-NC license (requiring
attribution, but restricting use to noncommercial use only) could
specify a broker (like a third party service on a website) that
would handle commercial rights associated with the content.
Because CC licenses are non-exclusive, there is no Creative
Commons-based limit to such multi-licensing.
Background
Creative Commons is a Massachusetts non-profit corporation
that offers free copyright licenses to creators who want to clearly In the four years since its launch, Creative Commons has become
mark their content with certain freedoms. These licenses release the preeminent “user-generated content” licensing entity. The
some of the exclusive rights granted automatically by copyright project has sister projects in over 70 jurisdictions around the
law to the general public, while reserving other rights to the world, each working to port its core licenses to local law; 40
copyright holder — thus its slogan, “Some Rights Reserved.” of those countries have completed their work to date. License
uptake has in turn grown dramatically in scope and quantity. CC
Using the CC infrastructure, copyright holders may grant others licences are now being used by everyone from bloggers to major
the freedom to: label artists.
1. Share their work, or As CC has grown, it has developed closer relationships with
2. Remix their work, or important content and application companies. Six Apart
3. Both. integrated Creative Commons licenses into their blogging
software early on. Flickr has included CC licensing options in
These freedoms may be conditioned, or limited, by: its photo service from the start. Online video sites blip.tv and
Revver have both integrated CC licenses into video uploads
4. Limiting such uses to non-commercial activities, or while YouTube has integrated a system called “audioswap” to
5. Requiring adopters share-alike — meaning derivatives enable YouTube users to draw upon Creative Commons licensed
of the original work must be licensed in a similar way, or content to produce their own video content and “swap” out audio
6. Both. files found to be used illegally. And the list goes on, as Creative
Commons has worked with Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, Apple
These choices are then represented through a CC license icon and many other companies working to lower the transaction cost
on the web that: associated with sharing and re-use of content in the new world.
1. Displays the freedoms offered,
2. Links to a “Commons Deed” that explains CC+
the freedoms in a human-readable way. In its initial development, Creative Commons focused upon the
3. Links to a license that enforces the freedoms, and “sharing economy.” Its objective has always been to provide a legal
4. Links to metadata that describes the framework to protect content intended by its copyright holder to be
freedoms in a machine-readable way. shared or remixed freely. The objective so far has not been to facilitate
the cross-over from the “sharing economy” to the “commercial
economy.” Nothing in the CC charter opposed such a cross-over;
indeed, the messaging around Creative Commons encouraged it.
CC and CC+ Overview for the World Wide Web
But nothing in the architecture of the CC infrastructure enabled Clicking on the “permissions beyond” icon would then take you
a simple way for artists to signal and embed the ability to link the to a commercial site — again, not run by Creative Commons
“sharing economy” to a “commercial economy.” — where the terms for the rights beyond those granted by CC
licenses could be negotiated. In this example, the Pump Audio
In December, 2006, this limit began to change. Creative link looks like this:
Commons announced a beta protocol that would enable CC
licensed content to be directly linked to commercial uses of that
content. Using this protocol, CC licensed content could include
links to rights or uses beyond those provided by the Creative
Commons license. And, while CC will never itself provide
those commercial links, it will enable others to use this CC+
infrastructure to leverage commercial value out of otherwise
freely distributed content.
With this new protocol, for example, a musician might license a
song under a CC BY-NC-ND license — encouraging people to
noncommercially share the song, but not to remix it, or otherwise
make derivatives of the work. Using this new infrastructure, however,
the artist may indicate a simple way that people could link back to a
commercial site to secure rights beyond those granted
automatically. The “Commons Deed” signals that ability through a
new icon, and a link from that icon to the appropriate site. There is no limit to the commercial opportunities that might be
specified beyond those in the CC license. The CC+ link could
be to a site that offers one the ability to purchase a CD or t-shirt
with a specific photo that is licensed under a Creative Commons
license. Or, this CC+ link additionally could be to an agency that
sells commercial rights to that photo. The protocol is a general
facility to link CC licensed work with commercial opportunities.
Anyone may use this protocol to enable hybrid creativity (See
“CC+ Technical Implementation” document).
This new protocol offers an obvious opportunity for Creative
Commons licensed content to provide competition to proprietary
commercial content. Because the infrastructure permits any
rights organization or agent to be named to handle rights beyond
those granted by the CC license, CC+ encourages competition
Thus, the Commons Deed now looks like this: among these organizations or agencies. Since CC+ gives
creators a way to monetize uses beyond the non-commercial
sharing enabled by the Internet, CC+ encourages artists to make
their work available using this infrastructure. Finally, because the
CC licenses have become pervasive standards with large-scale
adoption for user-generated content licenses, organizations
trying to build businesses around such content will have an
obvious incentive to use the standards set by Creative Commons
rather than reinventing the wheel by building their own.
More Information
Please visit http://creativecommons.org/
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Share, reuse, and remix — legally.
www.creativecommons.org
