Creative Commons
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons refers to an international initiative that aims to provide a mechanism for transparent, unambiguous licensing of copyright material that neither assumes nor requires the commercialization of content. It is also a non-profit corporation founded in 2001 "dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright." (Creative Commons) The organisation provides a set of free, copyright based licences to help creators easily identify how others may use their work legally. Creative Commons licences empower creators to positively express how their creative works may be used by others and facilitate long term access and re-use of creative works, whilst retaining copyright ownership of their material.
Many Australian and international governments, universities, private sector organisations and individuals have adopted Creative Commons licensing for their works.
How do the licences work?
The licences allow creators to release some rights to their works, such as the right to copy, share or modify works, while reserving other rights. Creators can choose from a range of protections and permissions, creating a "some rights reserved" environment which falls between the "all rights reserved" function of copyright and the "no rights reserved" function of the public domain.
Unlike works protected by traditional copyright systems, works licensed under Creative Commons afford users certain 'baseline rights' as standard. This means that if a work is licensed using Creative Commons, these rights are given implicitly and users do not need to obtain permission in order to exercise them. However, this is conditional on the user's correct acknowledgement of the original creator of the work. All Creative Commons licences contain a mandatory attribution protection that requires users to attribute the creator in the manner they request, without implying the creator's endorsement of the user or user's new work.
The 'baseline rights' common to all Creative Commons licences afford users permission to:
- Copy works
- Distribute works
- Display or perform works
- Communicate (i.e. by making works available online)
- Format shift verbatim copies of works (i.e. transferring work in its original, unaltered format - for example, copying an MP3 file from a CD to computer)
Creators can then choose their desired combination of additional protections, giving permission for commercial or for exclusively non commercial use of their work, and permission for users to modify works or to use them only in their original, unaltered form ('No Derivatives'). Creators can also enforce a 'Share Alike' permission, giving users the right to reuse and modify works on the condition that users release, or 'share', any resultant derivative works under the same licence terms as the original.
Further information about the different types of licences can be found via Creative Commons Australia.
How can I tell if a work is licensed under Creative Commons?
Creative Commons uses universally recognisable symbols to indicate the type of licence in use. Typically a licence tag will be placed at the bottom of the webpage or first page of the document, linked to an outline of the rights and protections afforded by the licence. Clicking on the licence tag will take you to a user-friendly summary of your rights and obligations as a user of the work. Licence tags will look similar to this:
How can I use Creative Commons for my own works?
Creative Commons is a copyright based system, and licences are assigned by the copyright holder. This means that the licence lasts for the full duration of the work's copyright (see 'How long does copyright last?'). You must hold the copyright of the work you wish to licence under Creative Commons. If the work is collaborative, you must obtain permission from the relevant additional parties before choosing a Creative Commons licence.
If you wish to licence a work that contains third party copyright content, such as digital images, maps, quoted text, or similar material, you could:
- Contact the relevant rights holders and request that they allow their work to be licensed under Creative Commons
- If you are unable to contact the rights holders, or if the rights holders do not permit their content to be licensed under Creative Commons - licence the work under Creative Commons, ensuring that you attribute the third party content as copyright of the original creator/s and indicate that their material is not included under the Creative Commons licence used for your own work.
Creative Commons licences are easy to apply. Simply go to the Creative Commons Australia website and follow the 'license' link.
Page last updated: Friday 23 December 2011
