[cc-br] Fw: [cc-info] CC in Review: Lawrence Lessig on Supporting the Commons
Omar Kaminski
kaminski at fgv.br
Thu Oct 6 14:59:48 EDT 2005
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lawrence Lessig" <lessig at pobox.com>
To: <cc-info at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 1:12 PM
Subject: [cc-info] CC in Review: Lawrence Lessig on Supporting the Commons
> So today, Creative Commons launches its first fund raising campaign.
> Until now, we've lived on very generous grants from some very wise
> foundations. But the IRS doesn't allow nonprofits to live such
> favored lives for long. To maintain our nonprofit status, the IRS
> says we must meet a "public support test" -- which means we must
> demonstrate that our support comes from more than a few foundations.
> And thus, this campaign.
>
> This email is a pitch, asking for your support. But it is also the
> first in a series of emails I will write explaining what Creative
> Commons is, and where we're going with it. This is something I should
> have done long ago. There have been many thoughtful (even if some not
> so thoughtful) questions raised about who we are, and where we're
> going. I've wanted an excuse to answer them thoughtfully before. The
> IRS has given me that excuse.
>
> You're on this list because you've signed up to receive information
> about Creative Commons or been a friend to CC in the past. If these
> weekly emails from me (from now until Christmas, around 500 words in
> length, except for this one which is a bit long) will be a bother,
> please unsubscribe at
> http://creativecommons.org/about/newsletter#unsubscribe.
> Alternatively, if you know others who might find these interesting,
> please recommend they sign up at
> http://creativecommons.org/about/newsletter.
>
> This first email won't have much news to current friends of Creative
> Commons. You probably know all this. My aim in this initial missive
> is to explain what Creative Commons is, and why we launched it. There
> will be some bragging about what we've accomplished so far. Don't
> worry, these emails are from me, and not a press department. There
> will be plenty of self-criticism later on. For the moment, let's
> focus on the positive idea that got CC going.
>
> CC: The Story
>
> Creative Commons was conceived in a conversation I had with Eric
> Eldred. I was representing Eric in his case challenging the United
> States Congress' Copyright Term Extension Act. Eric was enthusiastic
> about the case, but not optimistic about the results. Early on, he
> asked me whether there was a way that we could translate the energy
> that was building around his case into something positive. Not an
> attack on copyright, but a way of using copyright to support, in
> effect, the public domain.
>
> I readily agreed, not so much because I had a plan, but because,
> naive lawyer that I was, I thought we'd win the case, and Eric would
> forget the dream. But nonetheless, long before the Supreme Court
> decided to hear Eldred's plea, a bunch of us had put together the
> plan to build the Creative Commons.
>
> We stole the basic idea from the Free Software Foundation -- give
> away free copyright licenses. Because copyright is property, the law
> requires that you get permission before you "use" a copyrighted work,
> unless that use is a "fair use." The particular kind of "use" that
> requires permission is any use within the reach of the exclusive
> rights that copyright grants. In the physical world, these "exclusive
> rights" leave lots unregulated by copyright. For example, in the real
> world, if you read a book, that's not a "fair use" of the book. It is
> an unregulated use of the book, as reading does not produce a copy
> (except in the brain, but don't tell the lawyers).
>
> But in cyberspace, there's no way to "use" a work without
> simultaneously making a "copy." In principle, and again, subject to
> fair use, any use of a work in cyberspace could be said to require
> permission first. And it is that feature (or bug, depending upon your
> perspective) that was the hook we used to get Creative Commons going.
>
> The idea (again, stolen from the FSF) was to produce copyright
> licenses that artists, authors, educators, and researchers could use
> to announce to the world the freedoms that they want their creative
> work to carry. If the default rule of copyright is "all rights
> reserved," the express meaning of a Creative Commons license is that
> only "some rights [are] reserved." For example, copyright law gives
> the copyright holder the exclusive right to make "copies" of his or
> her work. A Creative Commons license could, in effect, announce that
> this exclusive right was given to the public.
>
> Which freedoms the licenses offer is determined both by us (deciding
> which freedoms are important to secure through CC licenses) and by
> the creator who selects from the options we make available on our
> website. The basic components have historically been four: (1)
> Attribution (meaning the creator requires attribution as a condition
> of using his or her creative work), (2) NonCommercial (meaning the
> creator allows only noncommercial uses of his or her work), (3) No
> Derivatives (meaning the creator asks that the work be used as is,
> and not as the basis for something else), and (4) Share Alike
> (meaning any derivative you make using the licensed work must also be
> released under a Share Alike license).
>
> These four options -- when each is an option -- produce 11 possible
> licenses. But when we saw that 98% of our adopters chose the
> "attribution" requirement, we decided to drop attribution as an
> option. That means we now offer 6 core licenses:
>
> (1) Attribution (use the work however you like, but give me attribution)
> (2) Attribution-ShareAlike (use the work however you like, but give
> me attribution, and license any derivative under a Share Alike license)
> (3) Attribution-NoDerivatives (use the work as is, and give me
> attribution)
> (4) Attribution-NonCommercial (use the work for noncommercial
> purposes, and give me attribution)
> (5) Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (use the work for
> noncommercial purposes, as is, and with attribution)
> (6) Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (use the work for
> noncommercial purposes, give me attribution, and license any
> derivative under a ShareAlike license)
>
> (We also offer a couple of other specialty licenses that I'll
> describe in a later post).
>
> These options get added to a basic template license. That template
> assures that the creator (1) retains his or her copyright, (2)
> affirms that any fair use, first sale, or free expression rights are
> not affected by the CC license, and (3) so long as the adopter
> respects the conditions the creator has imposed, the license gives
> anyone in the world four freedoms: (i) to copy the work, (ii) to
> distribute the work, (iii) to display or publicly perform the work,
> and (iv) to make a digital public performance of the work (i.e.,
> webcasting). Finally, the license also requires the adopter to (1)
> get permission for any uses outside of those granted, (2) keep any
> copyright notices intact, (3) link to the license, (4) not alter the
> license terms, and (5) not use technology (i.e., DRM) to restrict a
> licensee's rights under the license.
>
> The licenses give creators a simple way to mark their creativity with
> the freedoms they want it to carry by default. The license is an
> invitation to others to ask for permission for uses beyond those
> given by default. A "Noncommercial" license does not mean the creator
> would never take money for his or her creativity. It means simply,
> "Ask if you want to make a commercial use. No need to ask if you want
> to make just a noncommercial use."
>
> We launched Creative Commons in December, 2002. Within a year, we
> counted over 1,000,000 link-backs to our licenses. At a year and a
> half, that number was over 1,800,000. At two, the number was just
> about 5,000,000. At two and a half years (last June), the number was
> just over 12,000,000. And today -- three months later -- Yahoo!
> reports over 50,000,000 link-backs to our licenses. "Link-backs" are
> not really a count of how many objects are licensed under Creative
> Commons licenses - a single license could cover 100,000 songs in a
> music database for example, or a single blog might have multiple
> instances of the license. But the growth does measure something: The
> uptake of Creative Commons licenses is growing fast, and indeed, far
> faster than I ever dreamed.
>
> Next week: What problems did we aim to solve and what examples from
> the past did we learn from.
>
> To link to or comment on this message, go to:
> http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5661
>
> To support Creative Commons, go to:
> http://creativecommons.org/support
>
> For more on the licenses, see
> http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/fullrights
>
> For comics and movies: http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/how1,
> http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/
>
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>
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