August 19, 2008 by cdrigby
The Problem: Freedom for Creative Works That Are Not Software

Much has been written elsewhere about the way in which the arrival of widely-available and network-connected computers has facilitated the copying and distribution of artistic works. The technology has developed so rapidly that the legal and business communities are struggling to adapt.

The topic is too extensive to deal with in this brief article. Since the 1990s the question has often been asked, "How can I give away some of the rights to my creative work, but not everything?" The standard copyright disclaimer is, "All rights reserved". But what if I, the writer or artist, only want to reserve some of my rights?

Why would I want to do that? Well, I might do it to increase the exposure of my work. Writers and artists need public exposure. If I permit others to copy and distribute some of my work, they are essentially providing me with free advertising. Hopefully this would create a larger market for my future work; work from which I could derive a profit.

Other motivations are possible, of course. By the late 1990s it was clear that the already popular FOSS licenses were not the best fit for creative works. A close reading of one of the most popular, the GPL, reveals that this license is specifically for software. Creative works and software works, though both are covered by copyright law, are fundamentally different. Clearly, a new licensing scheme was needed.

So it was that in December of 2002 the Creative Commons project released its first set of licenses. The goal was to create licenses for creative works that would specify which rights the creator reserved to himself, and which he was willing to give away to others. More information about the development of the Creative Commons organization is available on the Creative Commons' history page.

Is it useful? Well, we here at Software Freedom Day Singapore think so. If you scroll to the bottom of this or any page of this website, you will see that our content is covered by a Creative Commons license. Besides the licenses themselves, Creative Commons supplies the code that generates the link to the license text. Having chosen the license we wish to use, we need only copy that code to our site. With a single click, anyone viewing this site can see exactly what they are permitted to do with the content.

To provide a better understanding of how the sharing of creative works can be carried out, Alex Roberts, Rebecca Rojer, and John Phillips have created an illustrated primer on the use of Creative Commons licenses. Of course, it is released under a Creative Commons license! Since the authors used such a license, we can make it available on our site for a quick and convenient download. So read it by visiting the link above, or download it by clicking on the link below.