[cc-community] cc license use on participatory art sites, infringement and confusion

Alek Tarkowski alek.tarkowski at creativecommons.pl
Mon Nov 27 07:13:48 EST 2006


Hello,

A friend of mine has sent me a link to a person complaining that a site 
called Buzznet allows people to upload works by others as their own, and 
on top of that mark them as CC licensed. The gist of the criticism is 
that though uploading somebody else's work is bad and immoral, at least 
uner normal copyright you do not make it easily available. So this is, I 
think, an important argument for us - that infringement with the later 
use of CC licenses is worse for the original artist than just infringement.
http://kmye-chan.deviantart.com/journal/10844224/

I write about this for two reasons. Firstly, I am a bit shocked by how 
this person, clearly knowledgeable just a bit about copyrights, gets 
confused about CC - at some point s/he mentions a license called "Common 
Creative - Paternity 0.1" - no idea what that's supposed to be.

Secondly, the person is right that on Buzznet, a site where people 
basically set up account to post things, a bit like flickr, but more 
youth / fan oriented, people will post anything - game screenshots, 
anime fragments, you name a copyrighted work they might have it, and 
then license it away under CC (as it also seems that CC licensing is a 
default option, but I did not check). So this is a problem, because we 
have an interface that sort of supports batch infringement and confusion.

So I think CC needs to really work with platforms that offer CC 
licensing in the interface. Flickr finally managed to improve licensing 
description to make it a bit more clear, but when you upload, you don't 
get relevant info that helps you understand what you're doing with CC 
licenses, the way you get with the normal CC licensing engine. And even 
that engine could be improved - this has been mentioned several times, 
that the selection process should include a reminder about not licensing 
other's works and so on (this piece of advice is currently burried 
somewhere in the FAQ).

Otherwise we might reach a point where CC is recognized as "something to 
do", the license use counter will be ticking like crazy, but the whole 
pool of works will be slightly spoiled, not a good situation. I think 
education needs to be tightly coupled with technical means (as always!!).

best,

Alek Tarkowski

-- 
koordynator / Public Lead
Creative Commons Polska / Poland

(+48) 889 660 444
http://creativecommons.pl
skype:alektarkowski

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