Creative Commons: an introduction

Jessica CoatesProject Manager

Creative Commons Clinic

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

AUSTRALIA

part of the Creative Commons international initiativeCRICOS No. 00213J

What can you do without permission?

• Email a news article to a friend?

• Download a song onto your hard drive?

• Post a picture/song/film onto your blog page?

• Use a song in a podcast or in the soundtrack of a short film?

• Create a remix or mash up out of video/music clips?

• Record a cover song?

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

What can you do without permission?

• Email a news article to a friend?

• Download a song onto your hard drive?

• Post a picture/song/film onto your blog page?

• Use a song in a podcast or in the soundtrack of a short film?

• Create a remix or mash up out of video/music clips?

• Record a cover song?

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

No

No

No

No

No

No

AUSTRALIA

part of the Creative Commons international initiativeCRICOS No. 00213J

Enter Creative Commons

Aims to make creative material more freely available by providing free licences that creators can use to give permission in

advance

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Licences

4 licence elements:

Attribution – attribute the author

Noncommercial – no commercial use

No Derivative Works – no remixing

ShareAlike – remix only if you let others remix

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Licences

creators mix and match these elements to make a licence eg:

Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike – can remix, tweak, and build upon the work, as long as:

• you credit the author;

• it is for non-commercial purposes; and

• you license your new creations under the same licence

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Licences

Attribution

Attribution-Noncommercial

Attribution-NoDerivatives

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Attribution-ShareAlike

Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike

Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives

Licences

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

Licences

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

Finding CC Material

• Built in metadata makes CC materials easy to find.

• Search engines with dedicated CC functions include Google, Yahoo, Flickr and Firefox (Linux web browser).

• Creative Commons homepage lets you search by type of material.

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

CC sites

Good places to find CC material:

• Flickr - photos

• Blip.tv – videos

• Magnatune – music

• Opsound – CC ‘sounds’

• Directory of Open Access Journals - articles

• ccMixter – remix community

• Internet Archive - everything

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Before using CC material

Things to think about:

• Check that you’re following the licence (ask for extra permission if you want to make extra uses)

• Make sure your use isn’t ‘derogatory’

• Use common sense

• Don’t forget to attribute

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Using CC licences

• Can use to give permission for your own material

• Free, easy to understand, no lawyers needed

• If putting material online, should always license if you can – otherwise, people can’t do anything

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Choosing a licence

• Licence generator – on CC website – uses simple questions to determine appropriate licence

• Also available:– ccPublisher – downloadable

desktop wizard– Microsoft plug-in –allows you to

CC license straight from Office programs

– Individual site generators eg Flickr

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Licences

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

Licences

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

Licences

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

What to CC license?

You can publish/archive:

• short works

• long works

• previews/excerpts

• samples

• ‘drafts’

• material that would not otherwise be published – eg source material, back catalogue, ‘junk’

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Where to share material

• Own website

• Popular sites – eg Flickr, Garageband.com Myspace

• Remix communities – eg ccMixter, Opsound

• CC businesses – eg Revver, Magnatune

• Own website

• Peer-to-peer, bit torrent

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Before using CC licences

Things to think about:

• Who do you want to use the material, and when? eg global, perpetual

• Are you choosing the right licence? eg do you want them to be able to change your material?

• Do you have the rights to license the material? are you using anyone else’s material?

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Case Studies

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

Revver • Free video sharing site – remunerates

authors through embedded advertising

• compulsory BY-NC-ND licensing – cause maximum distribution essential to business model

• Eepybird.com’s “Extreme diet coke and mentos experiment” - watched over 6 million times; made US$30,000

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

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“the terms of service for many upload sites give site owners free reign to edit or repurpose uploads however they like, it’s a step forward every time a new creator opts into the CC license.”

Cory Doctorow• Sci-fi author and editor of Boing-Boing

• 2003 - released first book, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, as e-book under BY-NC-ND at the same time as published

• Re-released in 2004 under BY-NC-SA

• 30,000 downloads first day, now in 6th print run

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

“Throughout history, writers have relied on day jobs . . . to make ends meet. The Internet not only sells more books for me, it also gives me more opportunities to earn my keep through writing-related activities.”

Magnatune• Aims to reach niche markets not serviced by

traditional record industry

• MP3 previews available under a CC Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike licence - allows people to promote the music online and remix

• Users pay for higher-quality versions, or for commercial use licences (eg for advertisement or re-mix CD)

• All proceeds split 50/50 with artist

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

“Find a way of getting music from the musician to their audience that's inexpensive and supports musicians. Otherwise, musical diversity will continue to greatly suffer under the current system where only mega-hits make money.”

Thanks

http://www.creativecommons.org

http://www.creativecommons.org.au

info@creativecommons.org.au

AUSTRALIApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

CRICOS No. 00213J

This slide show is licensed under a Creative Commons Australia Attribution licence. For more information see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/.