Happy Birthday CC
We talk a lot about social media here and it's worth noting that much of this remix culture and grassroots creativity bubble-up is predicated by Creative Commons licensing.
We had hoped to throw a proper birthday bash for CC this year but, there's a lot going on in our world so, in lieu of that, here's a Creative Commons primer and best wishes for turning 6 years old on Dec. 16th, 2008.
IP Laws Primer
Intellectual property laws are a wee bit confusing to say the least. For content creators, you gut feeling might tell you it is somehow important to protect your stuff to the point that no one can use/listen/share/enjoy without express permissions and/or wrapped in advertising. However, to paraphrase Tim O'Reilly (IIRC) "more artists struggle with obscurity more than piracy."
The advent of CC licensing allows you to grant an alternative to traditional copyright laws. By liberalizing the controls on how you want others to use your "stuff" allows artists to expose their work with a vast (dareisay) market for truly independent creations.
For artists willing to take the step, the theory suggests that by applying a less-restrictive license, you can grow a larger, more enthusiastic audience, quicker, and more cost-efficiently without the financial shackles and machinations of a major record label, book publishing house, or other usual gatekeepers who have (temporarily) solved the distribution puzzle.
Gre/ay Areas
Creative Commons does not mean "public domain" (though you can apply no copyright), and does not mean you are giving your stuff away, nor are you giving away commercial rights - to sort out the big picture conundrums, here's a list of things to think about.
Creative Commons isn't without gray areas - in some ways this is an evolving social experiment in which we are all defining answers to: What is commercial use? What constitutes attribution? What about model releases? These questions are bandied about, with real world examples, at Darren Barefoot's The Practicalities of Flickr and Creative Commons and Duane Storey's Creative Commons, Flickr and You.
How about some examples?
In practical terms, more liberal licensing allows podcasters to find theme music, collage artists to find source materials, bands to use photos, fans to share audio recordings, writers to find readers for enjoyment and feedback. From my vantage point this movement proclaims "It's *our* culture, and if it doesn't cost to share the stuff, then share it."
Our pal KK is a great example of blowing up a fashion and editorial photo reputation hyper-fast by 'giving it away' - he makes bread doing the shoots, not selling the prints and all sorts of bands and geeks use his shots for avatars and album covers. The Grateful Dead are spiritual godfathers of the "we're done with it, do whatever you want with it" movement by allowing fans to trade tapes of shows. (disclaimer, Dead.net/Rhino Records is a Raincity Studios client).
New Way vs. Old Way
Growing by Sharing is the New Way. The Old Way is best explained by paraphrasing rock band Boston, (ergo: word hard and wait for the man to arrive with the cheque and your life will be awesome).
[Song lyrics quoted here in the original — omitted.]
License Tool Box
So, how do you actually use Creative Commons licensing? Here's what they/you/we say (after the break):
Share, Remix, Reuse — Legally
Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved."
We're a nonprofit organization. Everything we do — including the software we create — is free.
You are in control of how much you want to let others collaborate, remix, or share. Depending on the licenses you attach, your audience use your work based on a custom combo of:
Attribution You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.
Share Alike You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
Noncommercial You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only.
No Derivative Works You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
Resource Pack
Here's your resource pack, you are responsible for your own CC birthday cake or beer - just be sure to explore, share, or create something for the commons first.
Creative Commons photostream on Flickr - Set your license on Flickr - related: Flickr Commons
Licensing info page - Create a license
Search Creative Commons content
Learn about copyright and public domain
Support Creative Commons - Call for Videos - Spread The Word
Use ccHost on your server for easy licensing
Non-liner remix tool - ccMixter
CcPublisher - CC Wiki -more on this cause i like it so much: ccPublisher is a tool that does two things: it will help you tag your audio and video files with information about your license and it allows you to upload Creative Commons-licensed audio and video works to the Internet Archive for free hosting. You also have the option of publishing the licensed and tagged audio works on your own site.