POLISCI 390WH : The Politics of the End of the World

Copyright is a right of a creator that attaches to a work the moment it is created or recorded.

Legally another person is not allowed to copy, remix, translate, adapt, etc. that work without permission (although users do have certain rights such as fair use). The fact that a work is available on the Internet (legally or otherwise) does not remove or change the copyright.

In the digital age, some creators would like their works to have a broad distribution, and be reused in other projects. Traditionally, permission would be given in the form of a licensing agreement that would be negotiated and signed by both parties. But it is not practical these days to get in touch with each and every person that might want to use your work. One solution to this problem is open licensing (also known as free licensing or public licensing). Open licensing allows creators to make it known that they permit extended uses of their works beyond fair use.

Note that open licensing does not mean that the creator gives up copyright (except if they release the work into the public domain). Instead of "all rights reserved", it's "some rights reserved".

Creative Commons (CC) is not the first open licensing scheme, but it is the best-known and the most-used, with 1.4 billion works under various CC licenses as of 2017. It started in 2001 and can be used for all kinds of works: text, image, sound, movie, interactive, etc. One of the most widely-known users of Creative Commons licensing is Wikipedia.

The basics of CC licensing is that creators can choose what conditions they would like their work to be used under. There are four conditions that can be combined to create the preferred license (see Figure 1 below for combinations).

1. CC-BY (Attribution). This is the basic condition, that the creator must be credited in the derivative work (i.e. the new work that incorporates it). This is the most permissive license and the others build on it.
2. CC-BY-SA (Share Alike). In addition to attribution, users must also license the derivative work under the same license as the original.
3. CC-BY-NC (Non-Commercial). In addition to attribution, users must not use the work for a commercial purpose.
4. CC-BY-ND (No Derivatives). In addition to attribution, users must not change the work in any way.

Note: You may also see works tagged with CC-0 (Public Domain). This releases the work into the public domain, so it's not technically a "license".

Figure 1: Creative Commons license types. Source: Wikimedia (File:Licenses from Foter Creative Commons license diagram (cropped).jpg) — CC-BY