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["Eric Eldred" <ericeldred AT gmail.com>]

See Lessig's comment and some other comments to him at
http://www.lessig.org/blog/   for March 13, 2007

The NC and SA licenses raise delicate legal issues and in
our outreach we must be careful to listen to our users' needs.

Right now I think it is important to look at the big picture,
without being overwhelmed or sidetracked by these issues,
so thanks Isaac for helping us with information to help
educate HKers about CC.  It is important to enlist many
users, artists, teachers, and all in this project.  I think
Jon and CC in San Francisco and Berlin can help if you ask
them, as well.  There is more news about ccLearn, open
courseware, Science Commons, and other CC work, than this 
article presents.

The HK Copyright Initiative is very significant and will
motivate many in HK to consider these issues.  However, we
should form CC-HK for the longterm no matter what happens
to any legislation or government action.  The same people
can work on both, but CC-HK has not yet officially organized,
and cannot take a position on this.  At least that is what
I think.

=eric

On 4/19/07, Isaac Mao <isaac.mao AT gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.educause.edu/content.asp?page_id=666&ID=ELI7023&bhcp=1

(what i've shared with some educators in China)

7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons

Scenario
In the fall, Dr. Crawford will be teaching a new course on 19th- and
20th-century U.S. municipal politics, covering well-known stories of
corruption and graft but also cities whose citizens benefited from the
efforts of their leaders.

In putting together the coursepack for the class, Crawford starts with
her own bookshelf, pulling letters, newspaper articles, contracts, and
other documents. She then turns to the Web, which provides numerous
artifacts and historical analyses related to the evolution of
municipal politics.

Because the coursepacks will be printed and sold to students in the
class, Crawford knows she needs permission to include copyrighted
materials. Many of the older documents she wants to use are already in
the public domain, their copyright protections having
expired decades ago. One article about Richard J. Daley was written by
a colleague Crawford knows from professional activities, and she is
able to obtain his permission without much trouble. For other
materials, Crawford spends several weeks contacting numerous
publishers and authors, some of whom agree to let their content appear
in the coursepack. By contrast, of the works she locates online many
are covered by Creative Commons licenses, each one clearly indicating
what uses are allowed. Without having to contact copyright owners,
Crawford knows which works she can include in the coursepack and,
moreover, which ones she can encourage her students to use in their
own work. Political
cartoons, in particular, provide sharp insights into public sentiments
about local politics. Crawford finds dozens of such cartoons covered
by a Creative Commons
license that allows modifications, and one project she assigns to the
students is to pick a cartoon from an earlier era and update it to
reflect a current situation.

Crawford shares the coursepack with other faculty, some of whom decide
to use the Creative Commons content in their own classes. She also
creates a Web site where she posts her students' cartoons—with their
own Creative Commons licenses—inviting others to use and share them.

What is it?
Creative Commons is an alternative to traditional copyright, developed
by a nonprofit organization of the same name. By default, most
original works are protected by copyright, which confers specific
rights regarding use and distribution. Creative Commons allows
copyright owners to release some of those rights while retaining
others, with the goal of increasing access to and sharing of
intellectual property.

Copyright has historically been an all-or-nothing proposition: a work
is either in the public domain, or its owner asserts "all rights
reserved." The term of copyright protection for most works has
stretched considerably, from 14 years (in 1790, when copyright law was
first enacted in the United States) to 70 years past the death of the
work's creator. Seeing the need for options besides "public domain"
and "all rights reserved," the creators of Creative Commons sought to
establish a middle ground of "some rights reserved" that respects
intellectual property while expanding the acceptable uses of protected
material. All licenses require attribution,and the least restrictive
only requires attribution. Other licenses include "No Derivatives,"
"NonCommercial-NoDerivatives," and "Share Alike," which requires
derivatives to have the same license as the original. Using Creative
Commons, a photographer, for example, might choose to allow anyone to
reproduce her photos or make derivative works from them, as long as it
is done for noncommercial purposes.



Who's doing it?
Higher education is rooted in the belief that the free exchange of
knowledge is fundamental to the common good, and faculty and
researchers in large numbers have begun using Creative Commons
licenses to facilitate a climate of openness and sharing. Granting
explicit permission for certain uses of one's scholarly material
expands opportunities for collaborative work and increases the
professional stature of individuals whose creative output is used in
other academic efforts. Two high-profile repositories of learning
materials attach Creative Commons licenses to their content:

MIT's OpenCourseWare and Connexions, a project started
at Rice University. OpenCourseWare was launched to provide public,
online access to the curricular materials from virtually all of MIT's
undergraduate and graduate courses. All the content on the site is
offered under the Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
2.5 license, which allows users to copy and distribute the work and to
make derivative works, as long as such uses include attribution,are
not for commercial purposes, and assign the same license to derivative
works. Connexions also offers online access to learning content, as
well as tools to help instructors assemble courses from available
materials. Connexions content is covered by a license that requires
only proper attribution.

How does it work?
The Creative Commons Web site explains the license choices and
provides a tool that walks users through choosing one. Based on the
user's response to questions about commercial uses, modifications
of the work, and jurisdiction, the site indicates the appropriate
license and provides HTML code that can be added to a Web page to
indicate the specific license chosen. The code includes a logo that
links to a Creative Commons Web page describing how the work may be
used. For non-Web-based materials, copyright owners can choose other
means to identify their license choice, though no label is required to
assert copyright protection. A number of Web sites offer directories
of content—often sorted by type, such as photography, music, art, or
videos—that include Creative Commons designations. Knowing clearly and
up front what is permissible, users can remix, copy, distribute, and
repurpose content according to the copyright owner's preferences.
Without simply making everything available to anyone (the "public
domain" approach), Creative Commons invites and encourages people to
use and share content in ways that benefit everyone.

Why is it significant?
Given advances in technology for creating, sharing, sampling, and
reusing content in various forms, many believe that the traditional
approach to copyright protection is obsolete. As tools such as wikis
and blogs are increasingly used for teaching and learning,
black-or-white copyright protection inhibits the opportunities these
applications provide. Creative Commons puts unprecedented power into
the hands of content owners and users, creating an environment in
which restrictions take a back seat to permissions and the creative
talents of individuals benefit the common good.

In some cases, individuals who have the time and wherewithal to seek
formal permission to use intellectual property are unable to locate
the copyright owner or even determine whether the work is protected.
Because Creative Commons licenses follow the content,
people know immediately the conditions under which its use is allowed,
without having to track down copyright owners or fret about what to do
if they cannot be found.

What are the downsides?
Copyright law is extremely complex—given the range of works that can
be protected, jurisdictional differences, and the increasingly gray
area of fair use—and Creative Commons adds another layer to this
situation. Creative Commons is designed to be easy to use, but this
simplicity comes at the expense of clarity at the extremes—determining
what defines a commercial use or constitutes acceptable attribution
can be tricky. The "share alike" principle, in particular, quickly
runs up against difficult questions. If a user incorporates a
photograph that is covered by a share alike license in a PowerPoint
presentation, does the entire presentation need to carry the same
license as the photo, or just the slide that features the picture?
Should attribution accompany the photo, or is it sufficient to cite
the source in a list of references at the end of the presentation? In
addition, despite at least one early ruling in favor of Creative
Commons licensing, it remains unclear how courts will view copyright
disputes involving material covered by Creative Commons licenses.

Where is it going?
Creative Commons licenses have grown to include nation-specific
differences in copyright law. Copyright owners can now choose either a
generic license or one that reflects laws in one of nearly three dozen
countries. This process of adding variations of licenses
to accommodate the copyright landscape is likely to continue,
increasing the adoption of the licenses by a wider range of content
owners. As understanding of the licenses spreads, greater numbers of
content users will specifically seek out material that is covered by a
Creative Commons license. A renewed sense of openness—rather than
restrictiveness—will support new educational efforts, particularly in
developing countries, that cross institutional
and national boundaries. Educational content will be shared freely,
with programs and degrees based on learning objects and resources from
multiple sources.

What are the implications for teaching and learning?
A copyright environment based on openness and sharing benefits
all education, from traditional classroom-based teaching to online and
distance programs. Considerable effort spent examining copyrights and
pursuing permissions can be redirected toward teaching. In addition,
eliminating restrictions on use of intellectual property encourages
new thinking among faculty about how to incorporate a wide range of
resources in their teaching. Even with the fair use exception for
academic applications, some works clearly fall outside the scope of
acceptable use. Allowing broad noncommercial use of otherwise
protected material significantly expands the pool of resources faculty
and students can use in teaching and learning. Knowing quickly and
easily whether a piece of content can be distributed, modified, or
remixed fits well with the teaching style of many instructors—they
want to be able to search for up-to-the-minute artifacts and include
them in lectures and learning materials, without having to worry about
obtaining permission.
Introducing the freedom to make derivative works from copyrighted
content also presents opportunities for new kinds of scholarship based
on interpretive remixing.





--
We Make Art Not Money
==================
Isaac Mao
Skype: isaac.mao
Home: http://www.isaacmao.com
Profile(Chinese): http://mao.wealink.com
Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/isaacmao
Subscriptons: http://www.anothr.com/isaac.mao


If you travel to China or can't access some overseas web sites, please
prepare to download Tor(http://tor.eff.org) to get free access to
those sites, e.g. http://www.technorati.com
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