What is Creative Commons
by Bobby Borg, author of "The Musician's Handbook"
Can you please define "Creative Commons" license?
CREATIVE COMMONS: A welcome model for intellectual property protection in the 21st century
Edited by Bobby Borg
Source: creativecommons.org
Special thanks to: Robert J. Nathan
As part of a recent edition of Wired Magazine, readers could find a bonus CD featuring the Beastie Boys, David Byrne and Chuck D—all licensed by some new organization called Creative Commons under a Creative Commons license. Since 2001, more than 10,000,000 objects have been marked with these licenses. So what's all the hype about?
Creative Common’s (www.creativecommons.org) is a nonprofit corporation that enables songwriters to choose a copyright license that reserves their commercial rights to the content, while authorizing the public to use the work for noncommercial purposes.
According to the Creative common’s website, these licenses then travel via Internet hyperlinks with the copyrighted content, helping others to know, and to rely upon, the freedoms they secure.
Using Creative Common's licensing tool at their site, a songwriter can choose:
1) Whether to authorize commercial use of the licensed content
2) Whether to permit derivative use of the licensed content, and
3) Whether to, (if derivative use is allowed,) require the works that build upon the licensed work also be made available under a similarly free license.
Creative Commons was founded in effort of fellows and students at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Creative Commons is housed at the Stanford Law School and is sustained by the contributions of a growing group of supporters.
For more information, it is highly recommend to visit the very comprehensive Creative Common’s Website at www.creativecommons.org
Hope that helps.
Special thanks to Robert J. Nathan
Copyright 2004 Bobby Borg. For more valuable music biz information, pick up Bobby's book, "The Musician's Handbook: A Practical Guide To Understanding The Music Business,"
on Billboard Books.
For more information, visit bobbyborg.com, or write: bborg@earthlink.net
or snail mail: Bobby Borg, PO Box 18564, Beverly Hills, CA 90209.
