The protection of intellectual property rights has become one of
the most difficult challenges for creative industries, affecting
governments, artists, creators, analysts and agencies alike. The
most significant challenge is how legal and policy frameworks can
keep up with the fast-paced and constantly evolving digital world.
Technology changes quickly and with it come new innovations that on
the one hand help the creative industries, but on the other create
a myriad of social and legal barriers to the effective use and
protection of their outputs.
In todays world, the pace of technological change has created a
situation where it is often not possible to do the very things that
technology now makes so simple and inexpensive. The Internet, and
especially the ongoing development of the digital social web, makes
the mismatch between what is possible and what is allowed obvious.
Sharing files? Thats illegal according to international copyright
law. Mixing or mashing music, text or video is also usually
illegal. Posting excerpts from a website or blog is still illegal
in most cases. Of course,
these "infringements" are still happening, but it is difficult to
build legitimate, sustainable practices or business models when
every participant is potentially a criminal in the eyes of the
law.
Creative Commons licences: A fast growing movement
While copyright remains the fundamental guarantor of the rights
of authorship, the Creative Commons movement is a fast-growing area
of interest in the protection of intellectual property rights for
artists, creators and educators. Creative Commons (CC) is a
non-profit corp-oration dedicated to making it easier to share
creative works within the rules of copyright. Through providing
free licences and other tools, CC provides a mechanism for creators
to embrace the capacities of the Internet to collaborate virtually,
and expand access to information and opportunities. CC licences are
not an alternative to copyright but are a permissive tool for
facilitating the release and waiver of rights, primarily for works
of low immediate commercial value.
CC licences (see box) were created in collaboration with
intellectual property experts around the world to ensure that the
licences work globally, and are composed of a combination of four
basic choices. There are already more than 250 million CC-licensed
items on the Internet, created by artists, authors, musicians,
scientists, artisans, educators and anyone else to share their
work, build their reputation and increase the impact of their
efforts. Among the better-known institutions and groups using CC
licences around the world are the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT) for its Open CourseWare Initiative, Al Jazeera for
their Creative Commons video repository, Google for search and
discovery, and even the White House in the United States for all
public communications channels.
Creative Commons: Types of basic licences
ATTRIBUTION
Allows others to copy, distribute, display, perform and remix
copyrighted work, as long as they give credit in the way
requested.
NON-COMMERCIAL
Allows others to copy, distribute, display, perform and
remix work for non-commercial purposes only. If they want to use
the work for commercial purposes, they must contact the creator for
permission.
SHARE
ALIKE
Allows others to create remixes and derivative works based on
creative work, as long as they only distribute them under the same
CC license as the original work was published.
NO DERIVATIVE
WORKS
Allows others to copy, distribute, display and perform
only verbatim copies of the work - not make derivative works based
on it. If they want to alter, transform, build upon or remix the
work, they must contact the creator for permission.
Paving the way for educational materials
For educators, CC's legal infrastructure gives flexibility to
the creator, protects users and makes collaboration easier as they
don't have to worry about copyright infringement as long as they
abide by the terms of use. For learners, openly licensed materials
provide access to a wealth of knowledge and opportunities to learn
in new ways. CCLearn, the education division of Creative Commons,
works to reduce or eliminate the legal, technical and social
barriers to the growth of educational materials, generally referred
to as open educational resources (OER).
The impact of OER for intellectual exchange among faculty,
improved educational access for students and opportunities for
collaboration is already significant. For example, the
OpenCourseWare Consortium consists of over 150 member institutions
all over the world. Similarly, regional initiatives, such as the
South African Siyavula Project, are transforming the educational
landscape at a local level. According to the Siyavula website,
"Open licences enhance innovation and lighten the load on
individual teachers and result in localised, content-specific
materials that are immediately useful to teachers."
The Open Database of Education Projects and Organizations has a
partial list of projects and organizations involved with OER. This
database is one of several community-engaged projects resident on
the global open education community site, called OpenEd, hosted by
CCLearn. The open education movement, like the use of CC licensing
in many different domains and industries, is only just
beginning.
The architecture of the Internet has flattened the information
landscape and opened opportunities for innovation by anyone with
access, especially in the developing world and in emerging markets.
CC licences ensure that these new opportunities built on the open
web enable broad, international participation without risk of legal
complications, but allowing creators to retain fundamental rights
to their own work.
New Tools for the Digital Age
Creative Commons has recently enabled new tools specifically
geared to making the most of the Internet without compromising
copyright including:
Search by Creative Commons
A search website installed as a default directory on the
Firefox browser that allows visitors to search for content that can
be used for commercial purposes and that can be modified, adapted
and built upon. Visit http://search.creativecommons.org/
Blip.tv
A database of user-generated video content
with a focus on content creators making "shows" or "serialized
content". Blip.tv currently distributes 2.4 million episodes
produced by more than 48,000 independently produced web shows to
audiences of 22 million people. Visit - http://blip.tv/
Owl Music Search
Owl allows users to search for music by uploading sound files and
searching the database for songs that are similar. Owl has indexed
more than 98,980 songs from commercial and independent song
catalogues, including the music sites ccMixter, Magnatune
and Jamendo. www.owlmusicsearch.com/
SpinXpress
A community site which encourages users to collaborate
through sharing video and other large files. Visit http://spinxpress.com/
For more information about Creative Commons visitwww.creativecommons.org
From Artist to Audience
Collective management of copyright
"How is it possible to ensure that an individual musician is
remunerated each time his song is played on the radio? Or a writer
whenever his play is performed? How can copyright and related
rights of such creators be managed efficiently so as to enable them
to concentrate on their creative activity while receiving the
economic reward due to them?"
From Artist to Audience, a booklet produced by the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in conjunction with the
International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers
and the International Federation of Reproduction Rights
Organisations, aims to answer some of these questions within the
context of copyright and related rights system works through the
collective management of rights.
From Artist to Audience (Publication No.922) is available in
PDF in English or French on the WIPO free publications
website:www.wipo.int/freepublications/en/