A Common Theme

A common theme in previous postings on this blog, whether stated explicitly or not, has been the idea we as a society are pretty well trapped in a corrupt, biased, monopolistic and creativity-destroying system held invincible by copyright law. I would like to propose, though, that this is not the case. In class last week, just when we thought all hope was lost, A RAY OF LIGHT SHONE THROUGH THE DARKNESS!

I am speaking of course about the Creative Commons (CC) license. Developed by a nonprofit organization (check it out) as an alternative to standard copyright, creative commons offers at least a partial solution for the problems posed by intellectual property and modern lawmaking practices as has been discussed previously. To put it simply, where copyright (c) says "All Rights Reserved," a Creative Commons (cc) license says "Some Rights Reserved." What does this mean? It means that the author, not the government, is responsible for defining what can or cannot be done with his work. By choosing from a selection of pre-prepared licenses available free of charge from the Creative Commons website, a person may choose (for example) to reserve only the right to profit. This means that anyone can share and distribute and rework the material he has produced as long as that person does not make money off of it.

Some people seem to be under the impression that this sort of license would prevent the artist from making any money off of his work. Basically, there is a nasty rumor going around that once something is marked (cc) the author cannot sell it for profit. This is simply not true, and I would recommend that anyone who has bought into such claims check out what the organization has to say about the stuff they wrote: (click here).

Remember, the (cc) licenses are lawyer friendly AND human friendly. ;)

-JMA