Another View of Creative Commons

[rolanni]

Nipped from badgermirlacca on a list we both frequent.

Creative Commons Humbug
By John C. Dvorak

Will someone explain to me the benefits of a trendy system developed by Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford? Dubbed Creative Commons, this system is some sort of secondary copyright license that, as far as I can tell, does absolutely nothing but threaten the already tenuous "fair use" provisos of existing copyright law. This is one of the dumbest initiatives ever put forth by the tech community. I mean seriously dumb. Eye-rolling dumb on the same scale as believing the Emperor is wearing fabulous new clothes.

If you are unfamiliar with this thing, be sure to go to the Web site and see if you can figure it out. Creative Commons actually seems to be a dangerous system with almost zero benefits to the public, copyright holders, or those of us who would like a return to a shorter-length copyright law.

The rest of the editorial here

Comments

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

I've seen the Creative Commons used in programming, when the idea is to share CSS files so that other programmers can see how you did nifty stuff. But you don't want them to copy your design, just be able to use the bits and pieces necessary to make their own design. You can't say "fair use" because you're really using the one file to educate on how a file is written...so whether 10% or 90% of the resulting file shares code with the first one, it's still a learning process used to create a new file. You change one thing...see what breaks...change something else...and eventually you have something that's largely new.

That works for computer files. I can't imagine it would be at all useful for fiction or even non-fiction texts. (Except maybe recipes...)

[autopope.livejournal.com]

CC is useful for fiction -- within the context of a midlist author trying to increase audience mindshare.

Releasing work under a CC license doesn't mean you're relinquishing copyright control; quite the contrary. What you are doing is setting forth the precise usage to which a user can put your work. You might be letting them do anything they want -- or you might choose one of the more restrictive licenses, to prevent them from re-selling the work or making derivative works (such as movies) without negotiating payments to you.

In my case, I've released a novel as a CC-licensed download at the same time as the hardcover was published; if you take the (restrictive) CC license I chose, and drop the whole internet/download/booga-booga hot-button issue out of the equation, what I've done is simply make the book available to readers on the same basis they'd be able to get it from a public library. If you're a midlist author, your biggest enemy is obscurity: you want mind-share at [almost] any cost. Giving readers a chance to download a novel is exactly as much of a "threat" to my income stream as allowing libraries to buy hardbacks and lend them out -- that is, it isn't: because today's free library borrower/downloader is tomorrow's purchaser. Without the CC license (which has been researched and prepared by some fairly astute lawyers) I'd have had a hell of a time rolling my own license or worrying about how to protect my rights to the work. This way, there's a well-defined framework within which I can grant readers limited access to the book without permitting, for example, pirate commercial copies (which would erode my market).

This is why idiots like Dvorak get me annoyed, by spouting off about something that they personally have no use for, on the assumption that nobody else can have any use for it either. Used correctly, the Creative Commons licenses can be a very useful marketing support tool for jobbing midlist authors.