Explain what Creative Commons is and, using examples, show how it is different to other forms of copyright.
Creative commons is defined as “An organization that has defined an alternative to copyrights by filling in the gap between full copyright, in which no use is permitted without permission, and public domain, where permission is not required at all. Creative Commons' licenses let people copy and distribute the work under specific conditions, and general descriptions and legal clauses.” Creative commons works parallel with copyright. (http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Creative+Commons)
In contrast to this the dentition of creative commons the explanation of copyright is “Copyright refers to laws that regulate the use of the work of a creator, such as an artist or author. This includes copying, distributing, altering and displaying creative, literary and other types of work. Unless otherwise stated in a contract, the author or creator of a work retains the copyright.” (http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/legalglossary/g/copyright.htm)
With regard to copyright, the idea cannot be protected itself but the physical use of the idea, which includes things like an artwork or a novel that is covered entirely under copyright law.
The goal of creative commons is a way to extend copyright and allow sharing of creative works and also modification of the originals by others. The author of the work can choose the level of protection that they want creative commons to reserve. This is one of the main differences between creative commons and copyright. Creative commons goes by the policy some rights reserved which allows the works to be possibly susceptible to reproduction and alteration without having to seek permission from the creator as the permission has already been granted through creative commons. This is in contrast to copyright, which agrees to all rights reserved so the product is completely reserved to the creator and if someone would like to reproduce the work they would have to seek permission from the creator. Creative commons is a free organization that is not for profit, where as with copyright does make a considerable amount of profit as, if someone wants to copyright their work under all rights reserved they must pay for it. Another way in which copyright makes its profit is that if another person wants to reproduce that work they must purchase it from the original copyright holder. From this perspective copyright is a business out to make a profit from the original creations of artist who has chosen to have their work protected.
To highlight the difference between creative commons and copyright, here is a list of the components of creative commons that a person can choose from when considering having their work placed under creative commons -
· Attribution – Which lets others reproduce your work but only if they give credit to you.
· Non-commercial – You let others reproduce but for non-commercial uses only
· No Derivative Works – Let others reproduce your work yet no derivative works based upon it.
· Share Alike – Let others reproduce your work only under a licence identical to the licence that governs your work.
An example of creative commons and how it is different to copyright is the website Wikepedia, which is a website that can be publically viewed by all and altered, reproduce, replicate and reference. A positive to the aspect of creative commons in regard to Wikepedia this is that all information is widely available globally and people can use and interpret it as they wish without having to worry about the legal implications of copyright. A negative aspect of this is that with anyone being able to edit or alter the information present on Wikepedia there is no telling if the information is reliable or not as the original source can be altered. Therefore referencing information from Wikipedia can never be a reliable source.
“A copyright gives the owner complete right over their work, and also protects it against any unauthorized usage on the Internet or through any other media.”(www.freelegaladvicehelp.com/copyrights/creative-common/Difference-Between-Copyright-And-Creative-Commons) Creative commons is very different to copyright as the laws are much less strict regarding something that is protected under copyright, for example. In regards to copyright with reference to scholarly journals the author has a choice as to how they want to copyright their work which comes under the Electronic Journal of Comparative Law (EJCL) this law is put into place to allow the work to be protected under copyright yet be reused for educational purposes only. This policy involves –
The author keeps the copyright.
The copyright notice mentions that classroom use is free, but other uses depend on the permission of the authors themselves.
The journal asks only for a licence to publish the article as the first publisher.
The author is obliged to mention EJCL as a source whenever the author later republishes the article on other platforms. (Hoorn, van der Graaf 2006)
With the examples of Wikipedia and various scholarly journals it can be shown how different the two concepts of creative commons and copyright really are. For things such as scholarly journals and thesis’s it is important to be acknowledged and credited for you hard work and research but also allow others to use this research and benefit from it for educational purposes. In using this as an example shows how copyright is an important factor in the protection of original works. In contrast to this creative commons is also an important aspect of sharing work. The fact that you can choose which level of protection that you want for your work allows the creator to flexibly decide how they would like to share their work or to create information on things such as Wikipedia. In conclusion neither one is more superior than the other yet both are different in their own ways and in regards to what the creator of the work wants their creation to be protected under they have two different forms of protection that they can choose from Creative commons or Copyright.
Reference List
http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Creative+Commons
http://clickandcopyright.com/copyright-resources/copyrights-vs-creative-commons
http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/legalglossary/g/copyright.htm
http://corp.kaltura.com/partners/sites/default/files/partner_logos/creative_commons.jpg
http://www.freelegaladvicehelp.com/copyrights/creative-common/Difference-Between-Copyright-And-Creative-Commons.html
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february06/vandergraaf/02vandergraaf.html
http://media.smashingmagazine.com
· Hoorn, Esther. van der Graaf, Maurits 2006, Copyright Issues in Open Access Research Journals The Authors Perspective D-Lib MagazineFebruary 2006, Volume 12 Number 2
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