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Creative Commons for dummies

by kin ko - @ckxpress - 2019.06.24

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Can you recall the few words you always see after the �© symbol?
Yes - All rights reserved
Do you realise, even if you don’t have to, don’t want to reserve all rights of your work, the law does so by default, unless you state it otherwise?
The world is by default closed under such a legal system

Physical vs digital

Reserving all rights of one’s work by default is a concept mimicking the physical world, where if you build something from natural resources, you’re the owner of it.
But the digital world operates very differently. When people copy one’s work, the work does not disappear. The right of copy - copyright - was too restrictive.
And in many if not more than half cases, when one creates a digital work, it is meant to share ideas with others. The copyright protection becomes a hurdle.

Creative Commons as a solution

Creators may license their work under Creative Commons - CC - to solve the aforementioned problem
In contrast to © All rights reserved, (CC) can be understood as Some rights reserved.
The “some rights” can be, for example, attribution, meaning you may use the work as long as you quote the source properly.
Or the “some rights” can be tag along, meaning if you use the work, you should also let others use it freely.

In 1998, the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CETA) was enacted in the US.
CETA was commonly known as Mickey Mouse Protection Act since it came right before a Mickey Mouse license was about to expire, and the beneficiary owner had a lot of resources in lobbying for it
Some people, notably Lawrence Lessig, a Harvard Professor in Law School, believed Mickey Mouse Protection Act is unconstitutional.

Eldred v. Ashcroft

Eric Eldred, as the lead petitioner and represented by Lawrence Lessig, challenged the US Government, represented by John David Ashcroft, the constitutionality of the Act.
The case, known as Eldred v. Ashcroft, went all the way to the Supreme Court and Ashcroft won.
Soon after the case, Lawrence Lessig created the Creative Commons license to allow and make it easy for creators to license their work in a less restrictive way.

CC as a license, org & movement

Apart from being a set of licenses for creators, nowadays used by 1.4 billions works on Flickr, 500px, Medium and etc, Creative Commons is also a non-profit organization with a small number of staffs, some contractors and volunteers around the world.
Creative Commons, of course, can also be understood as a global movement to promote openness, the culture to share, and the attitude of gratitude.

Creative Commons Global Network

As time went by, CC has become much more than a set of licenses. In 2016, the CC started a reorg to fulfill the latest need. The new CC Global Network was composed by Chapters and Platforms.
Chapters are territory based, formed voluntarily around the world. Some examples are CC Hong Kong, CC Taiwan
Platforms are function based. Some popular Platforms are OER (Open Education Resources) and GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums).

Other CC initiatives

CC also organizes CC Global Summit every year in different locations of the world. The 2018 Summit has taken placed on May in Lisbon. During the summit, the Creators Platform was getting in shape.
Started in 2018, CC Search is being developed to provide a set of tools to search for CC licensed works easily and reliably.
CC Certificate is an in-depth course about CC licenses, open practices and the ethos of the Commons.