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March 7, 2006
Is Creative Commons Broken? Hardly.
Alex Bosworth recently posted a provocative essay about Creative Commons, the online initiative attempting to simply licensing options for original works published on the Internet. Bosworth argues that Creative Commons isn't working for a variety of reasons, including the fact that there are too many versions of the license and that no one ever makes use of them.
He makes some interesting points, but I don't buy his argument that no one can actually make use of the licenses. Countless people use the licenses for adding someone else's media to their work. I've lost track of the number of times I've utilized CC music in my videos and podcasts, not to mention reprinting CC-licensed essays on my digitaldivide.net website. And rarely a day goes by where I don't hear from someone wanting to use my stuff and reconfirming if something is CC licensed.
The fact that you can customize your license is a major strength, in my mind, rather than a drawback. It's not like there's an infinite number of licenses combinations that would make the whole thing meaningless. Sure, there are 18 licenses availalbe, but some are media-specific (like the sampling license), and others, like the Developing Nations license, are country specific. I think it's important for people to decide whether or not they want others to share alike, or if they should cite you, or if you want to be notified if they would like to use your work commercially. Putting together the combination of rules that's right for you is what makes CC so powerful.
I'm also puzzled about this mystery as to what "commercial use." Isn't commercial use simply any kind of use intended to make a profit? That seems rather straightforward to me. If a school or museum contacts me and says they want to use one of my videos, I tell them they don't have to ask, since I've already licensed them so they can be used for noncommercial purposes. Meanwhile, I regularly get contacted by PR firms and graphic designers who want to use my photos in a pamphlet or poster or something. Their interest is clearly commercial, and my CC license informs them they'll have to negotiate with me directly.
If you haven't read his essay, read it. I would have posted excerpts here on my blog, but Alex doesn't use Creative Commons - his blog states "© Copyright 2003-2005 SourceLabs, Inc. All Rights Reserved." Technically, this means I would have to get his permission to post anything of his on my blog. If he had used a Creative Commons license, that wouldn't have been the case.
Creative Commons broken? Hardly. I think it's just getting warmed up.... -andy
Posted by acarvin at March 7, 2006 1:17 PM
Listen to a computer-generated podcast of this article
