Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization that enables sharing and reuse of creativity and knowledge through the provision of free legal tools. Our legal tools help those who want to encourage reuse of their works by offering them for use under generous, standardized terms; those who want to make creative uses of works; and those who want to benefit from this symbiosis. Our vision is to help others realize the full potential of the internet. CC has affiliates all over the world who help ensure our licenses work internationally and who raise awareness of our work. (Creative Commons, n.d.)

Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?”

Objectives

1.    Analyze the opportunity to use Creative Commons, as an organization that provides free legal tools to share creativity and knowledge.

2.    Define criteria for the use of legal and technical tools that facilitate the exchange and discovery of creative works.
 

Concepts

Table 1. Creativity Commons License Types
 

Source: The data in this table can be found on the website: https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/

- What is Creativity Commons Zero -CC0-?

In contrast to CC's licenses that allow copyright holders to choose from a range of permissions while retaining their copyright, CC0 empowers yet another choice altogether - the choice to opt-out of copyright and database protection, and the exclusive rights automatically granted to creators - the “no rights reserved” alternative to our licenses. (Creativity Commons, s.d.)

CC0 helps solve one problem by giving creators a way to waive all their copyright and related rights in their works to the fullest extent allowed by law. CC0 is a universal instrument that is not adapted to the laws of any particular legal jurisdiction, similar to many open-source software licenses. And while no tool, not even CC0, can guarantee a complete relinquishment of all copyright and database rights in every jurisdiction, we believe it provides the best and most complete alternative for contributing a work to the public domain given the many complex and diverse copyright and database systems around the world. (Creativity Commons, s.d.)

Using CC0

Unlike the Public Domain Mark, CC0 should not be used to mark works already free of known copyright and database restrictions and in the public domain throughout the world. However, it can be used to waive copyright and database rights to the extent you may have these rights in your work under the laws of at least one jurisdiction, even if your work is free of restrictions in others. Doing so clarifies the status of your work unambiguously worldwide and facilitates reuse. You should only apply CC0 to your own work unless you have the necessary rights to apply CC0 to another person’s work. (Creativity Commons, s.d.)

Conclusions

Although Creative Commons is best known for its licenses, your work extends beyond just providing copyright licenses. CC offers other legal and technical tools that also facilitate sharing and discovery of creative works, such as CC0, a public domain dedication for rights holders who wish to put their work into the public domain before the expiration of copyright, and the Public Domain Mark, a tool for marking a work that is in the worldwide public domain. Creative Commons licenses and tools were designed specifically to work with the web, which makes content that is offered under their terms easy to search for, discover, and use.
 

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