Creative
Commons (CC) was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig, Hal Abelson,
and Eric Eldred with the support of Center for the Public
Domain. With the proliferation of the internet, the organization felt
there was a need to provide a licensing strategy for creative works that would
be displayed in a digital environment. The concept was
developed well before web domains like Pinterest, Tumbler, Instagram, Flickr, and
other repositories for images even existed.
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| © 2015 Don Arday. |
When I first heard of Creative Commons I was skeptical, and there are many skeptics
out there still. In my case it had to do with my students not quite
understanding how Creative Commons worked or what it had to offer. One student
asked, “why pay to register anything with the Library of Congress when you can
do it for free with Creative Commons?” The Library of Congress establishes
absolute lawful ownership of creative content whereas Creative Commons does not
establish copyright. Creative Commons licenses
do not replace copyright, but are based upon it. Creative Commons operates
on an honor system. It is assumed that a Creative Commons licensor has
ownership of the copyright they are licensing. They state this very plainly in
a number of places on the site. They even provide an “alert” link for
prospective licensors at https://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing.
Conditions
Although
Creative Common licenses do come with conditions, too many to list here, with
some that may be undesirable for a creator, there may still be advantages for
applying a Creative Commons license to a work such as an illustration, but it
is very important to carefully consider the licensing conditions. One such
condition is that CC licenses are irrevocable. “Once you apply a CC license to
your material, anyone who receives it may rely on that license for as long
as the material is protected by copyright and similar rights, even if you later
stop distributing it.” This means that if you allowed an image you created to
be licensed Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND), that image would be available for
use for free for as long as the copyright extends. This would likely prohibit
resale of the image, or including it in a stock illustration inventory. Another
involves the ShareAlike condition, whereby someone other than the original
creator can remix, transform, or build upon their material with an attribution
to the original creator, with the stipulation that they must distribute their
derivative contribution under the same license as the original. This can
mean that the derivative version will have to be licensed the same way, but
with the derivative creator receiving attribution instead of the original
creator.
Licenses
The Creative
Commons licensing strategy consists of a tiered group of copyright-licenses called
Creative Commons licenses. These licenses are offered free of charge to
the public. The licenses allow creators (licensors) to classify image rights to
clarify how other individuals or other creators (licensees) can use the images
they own. CC licenses are meant to replace individual negotiations for specific
rights between a copyright owner (licensor) and a licensee that are
required under conventional copyright definitions such as "copyright all
rights reserved" and "copyright some rights reserved" re-use
cases where no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. CC
licenses clarify and streamline the licensing process.
The six licenses
are provided on a one-page explanation of rights that include associated visual
symbols for easy identification and accessible at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.
The following language comes directly from the Creative Commons URL.
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. Recommended for maximum dissemination and
use of licensed materials.
Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND)
This license
allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is
passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)
This license
lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as
they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)
This license
lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial
purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the
identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open
source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same
license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license
used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from
incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)
This license
lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and
although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they
don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)
This license
is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to
download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but
they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
In addition
to the six licenses, creators can use Creative Commons to designate a no rights
reserved “public domain” status for their creation.
No Rights Reserved (CC0)
CC0 enables
scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or
database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby
place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may
freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without
restriction under copyright or database law.
In contrast
to CC’s licenses that allow copyright holders to choose from a range of
permissions while retaining their copyright, CC0 empowers yet another choice
altogether – the choice to opt out of copyright and database protection, and
the exclusive rights automatically granted to creators – the “no rights
reserved” alternative to our licenses.
How To Use CC
CC licenses
can be obtained by following a few easy steps.
1. Choose
your license features by answering two questions. Allow adaptations of your
work, yes or no. And allow commercial uses of your work, yes or no.
2. Select a
license. Based on your responses to the questions asked, a license will be
suggested for choosing.
3. Provide
attribution information. A metafile information form is provided allowing title
of work, name to attribute the work to, URL for the work attribute, source URL
for the work, more permissions, the format for the work, and a license mark
format.
4. Insert
Creative Commons license icon and metadata on your web page. This will enable
you to share your CC license with others through CC-enabled content directories
such as Google and Yahoo. These content platforms have already enabled CC
licensing, making it easy for you to indicate the license along with other
information, such as who to attribute. In addition, search engines like Google
and Yahoo! will index your work as CC licensed if the metadata is
properly attached.
How CC Works
Google and
other search platforms allows users to filter their search results by usage
rights. Search results can be limited to the particular CC license sought. For
example, when looking for an illustration to adapt, a search can be conducted
for images that that have a CC license with permission to be able to create adaptations.
This search feature can be found on the advanced search page of a selected
search engine. You can also use CC Search, which offers a convenient
interface to search and a list of those content providers that support searches
for content based on usage rights. The following list of search platforms can
be simultaneously accessed for a subject search at http://search.creativecommons.org/.
Searchable image sources include the following engines:
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