Creative Commons
Introduction
How would you make it so that people all around the world, in different jurisdictions, can share information about intellectual property and enforce their rights?
What do we do now? In Australia, for many things, we rely on what is called ‘private international law (PIL)’. That is a branch of law that recognises the laws of other jurisdictions. This makes it possible to bring a case into the Australian courts even though the law being applied will not be Australian law. For example, if two people make a contract explicitly to be governed by French law, their disputes can be settled according to French law in an Australian court. Of course, this relies on the person having a reason to be using the Australian courts – for example because they live here.
We hear often about ‘public international law’ so isn’t that what we’d use? Well no, because only Australian law is dealt with by Australian courts (bearing in mind that PIL is Australian law by definition).
And we know there are lots of international conventions – especially all those made by the United Nations. Conventions are things that countries sign but they do not have any legal status unless or until they are adopted within the jurisdiction as law. Similarly, we have lots of standards but they are not law even if they are international standards – say the ISO standard for screws. Unless there is an Australian law that says people must use the standard, it has no real status in this country, even if it is adopted by Standards Australia as an Australian standard.
So, what about the World Wide Web of resources where it is really easy to copy someone’s work or to fake something?
Eric Miller and his colleagues, very clever young people, had one of their many brain-waves. If there was a way of describing the rights to resources that people were granted by the owner of the IP of resource, then all that would be required is for each jurisdiction to legislate how someone should behave with respect to those rights.
There is some international agreement about who owns the IP. When the Web first came about, there was a hope, among many in fact, that the old notion of copyright would be reviewed and instead, people would pay for the creation of the resoures and after that they’d be free. This was based on the idea that it does not cost to make multiple copies so the old notion is not relevant now. Sadly, in some ways, this did not happen. So back to the old ways…
The 2020 Creative Commons Conference was held in November. The website says:
The 2020 virtual CC Global Summit exceeded our expectations—over 1300 community members, from Canada and El Salvador to Nigeria and New Zealand, chose to spend a week with us to discuss the future of open, the unknowns of artificial intelligence, the possibilities of open GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums), the pressing need for copyright reform, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and much more. For the first time ever, the CC Summit was free for all to attend. We also adapted the virtual format to accommodate community members worldwide, with sessions taking place across various time zones and languages.
Read about the Conference here.
Creative Commons (https://creativecommons.org/)
This is a not-for-profit that does a lot for IP:
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Provide Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools that give every person and organization in the world a free, simple, and standardized way to grant copyright permissions for creative and academic works; ensure proper attribution; and allow others to copy, distribute, and make use of those works
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Work closely with major institutions and governments to create, adopt and implement open licensing and ensure the correct use of CC licenses and CC-licensed content
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Support the CC Global Network, a community initiative working to increase the volume, breadth, and quality of openly available knowledge worldwide
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Steward the Open COVID Pledge, which calls on organizations around the world to make their patents and copyrights freely available in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Develop technology like CC Search that makes openly licensed material easier to discover and use
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Offer the Creative Commons Certificate, an in-depth course for people interested in becoming experts in creating and engaging with openly licensed works
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Produce CC Summit, an annual event that brings together an international group of educators, artists, technologists, legal experts, and activists to promote the power of open licensing and global access
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Support global Open Education and GLAM communities
So far, at least 1.600,000,000 works have been described with Creative Commons licences.
Creating a Licence
This is a process that results in a description of the owner’s attitude to others’ use of their property. The best way to see how easy it is to work out which licence is to got to the page for choosing a licence: https://creativecommons.org/choose/
And what licences are available?
There are six different license types, listed from most to least permissive here (copied from the CC website):
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CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. -
CC BY includes the following elements:
BY
– Credit must be given to the creator
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CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. -
CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
SA
– Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
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CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. -
It includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC
– Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
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CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. -
CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms
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CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. -
CC BY-ND includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
ND
– No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted
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CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. -
CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
ND – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted
The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication
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CC0 (aka CC Zero) is a public dedication tool, which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions.
To learn more about the Creative Commons and the licences in Australia, visit https://creativecommons.org.au/