Introduction to Using Creative Commons

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What Is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a nonpmit organization that works toincrease the amount of aeaWy (cultural, educational, andscientiiic content) availabk in 'the commons" - he body ofwok that is available to the public for free and legal sharing,use, repurposing, and remmng

How Does Creative CommonsWork?W IV B ommons provides free, easy-touse legal tools thatgive everyone from individual 'user genetated content"creators to major companies and institutions a simple,

standardiied way to pre-clear usage rights to creative workthey own the copyright to. CC licenses let people easilychange their copyright terms fmm the default of 'all rightsreserved' to "some rights reserved.'

Cmative Commons licenses are not an altematk~ve tocopyright They apply on top of copyight, so you can modifyyour copyight terms to best suit your needs. We'vecollaborated with copyight experts all amund the world toensure that our licenses work globally.

Getting a Cmtive Commons r i s e s easy. Visit our Website at creatEvecommons.org and click 'License Your Work"Based on your answers to a few quick questions, we'll giveyou a license that clearly communicates to people what youwill and won't allow them to do with your creativity. It onlytakes a few minutes and it's totally free. Our Web site alsocontains an FAQ that answers many of the most commonquestions about how CC licenses work

What Can Creative Commons Dofor Me?If you've created something and want people to b o w thatyou're happy to have them share, use, and build upon yourwork, you shoukl consider p u b l i i i under a (XeativeCommons license. CC's legal infrastructure g-rves you th i b i l i i(for example, you can choose o only predear nonwmmenzduses) and protects the people wh o use your work (so that they

don't have to wony about W g h t nfringe- as bng asthey abide by the erms you have spedfied).

If ou're an artist. student, educator, echtkt, or other creatorlooking for content that you ca n freely and legany use, thereis a giant pool of CClicensed creativity availabk to you.There are many millions of works -from songs and videos toscientific and academic content - that you ca n use under thet e r n of our copyright licenses

Who Uses Creative CommonsLicenses?Major media and technology companies, leading universilies,

top scientists, and world-renowned artists all take advantageof the Creative Commons approach to coWrigM Mostimportantly, there are millions of 'regular" people around theworld who use CC licenses to help increase th e depth,breadth, and quality of creativity that is available to everyonefor free and legal use.

How Is Creative CommonsFunded?Financial support for Creative Commons comes fromorganizations induding the John 0. and Catherine T

MacArthur Foundation, Omidyar NatwDrk, the HewlettFoundatan, and the Rockefeller Fwndatii. CC alsoreceives contributions from members of the public - peoplejust like you who value th e open, cdlaborative exchange ofculture and knowledge.

Where Can I Find Out MoreAbout Creative Commons?There is much more information, including a number ofhelpful videos about Creative Commons, on our Web site.Please n'sl us at creativecommons.org to learn more aboutwhat we do and how we do it.

0 reativecommons


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Creative Commons (CC) provides free copyright licenseswhich empower authors and creators to mark theircreativi i with the freedoms they intend it to carry. In thisdocument we describe conceptually a technology we'vedeveloped to enable a simple click-through o rights oropportunities beyond those offered in the standard CClicenses. With this capability, it is simple for rightsholders to marry standard CC icenses with other optionsbeyond those provided whn a CC icense. For example,a licensor offering wntent under a CC BY-NC icense(requiring atkibution, but restricting use tononcommercial use only) could specify a broker (like athird party service on awebsite) that would handlecommercial rights associated with the wn ten t BecauseCC icenses are non-exclusive, there is no CreativeCommons-based limit to such multi-licensing.

BackgroundCreative Commons is a Massachusetts non-profitcorporation that offers free copyright licenses to creatorswho want to clearly mark their content with certainfreedoms. These licenses release some of the exclusiverights granted automatically by copyright law to the generalpublic, while reserving other rights to the copyright holder- hus its slogan, "Some Rights Resewed."Using the CC infrastructure, copyright holders may grantothers the freedom to:

(1) Share their work, or(2) Remix their work, or

(3) Both.

These freedoms may be conditioned, or limited, by:

(4) Limiting such uses to noncommercial activitk, or

(5) Requiring adopters share-alike - meaningderivates of the original work must be licensed n asimilar way, or

(6 ) Both.

These choices are then represented through a CC icenseicon on the web that:

(1) Displays the M o m s ffered,

(2) inks to a "Commons Deed" that explains thefreedoms in a human-readable way,

(3) Links to a license hat enforces the freedoms,and

(4) Llnks to metadata that describes he freedomsin a machine-readable way.

So for example, an artist might license a song on his webpage. That webpage would display the CC icense icon

' M i l Song' is I icansed under i a r a l = ' l i r m s e 'lh ie i= ' i l r tp /icreaciveconnDns org,/l icenses!t~:d-ni-55/3 O / ~ > < i , r ~ js i c - ' h ~ z : / / $ c raa t i vec , i nmnns o ig / l i by -nc -s a / ? 0/8@


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CC and CC+ Overviewfor the World Wide Web --http:llcreativecornrnons.orglproiectsI~~plus

As CC has grown, i t has developed closer relationshipswith important content and application companies. S u

Apart integrated Creative Commons licenses into theirblogging software early on. Flickr has included CClicensing options in its photo service from the start. Onlinevideo sites blip.tv and Rewer have bath integrated CClicenses into video uploads while YouTube has integrateda system called 'audioswap" to enable YouTube users todraw upon Creat'we Commons licensed content toproduce their own video content and 'swap" out audiofiles found to be used illegally. And the list goes on, asCreative Commons has worked with Microsoft, Google,Yahoo!, Apple and many other companies working tolower the transaction cost associated with sharing and re-use of content in the new world.

CC+In its initial development, Creative Commons focused uponthe "sharing economy." Its objective has h a y s been toprovide a legal framework to protect content intended byits copyright holder to be shared or remixed freely. Theobjective so far has not been to facilitate the crossoverfmm the "sharing economy' to the "commercial economy."Nothing in the CC charter opposed such a crossover;indeed, the messaging around Creative Commonsencouraged it. But nothing in the architecture of the CCinfrastructure enabled a simple way for artists to signal andembed the ability to link the "sharing economy' to a"commercial economy."

In December, 2006, this limit bqa n to change. CreativeCommons announced a beta pmtocol that would enableCC licensed content to be directly linked to commercialuses of that content. Using this protocol, CC licensedcontent could include links to rights or uses beyond thoseprovided by the Creative Commons license. And, while CCwill never itself provide those commercial links, it willenable others to use this CC+ infrastructure to leveragecommercial value out of otherwise freely distributed content.

With this new protocol, for example, a musician mightlicense a song under a CC BY-NCND license -encouraging people to nonwmmercially share the song,but not to remix it, or otherwise make derivatives of the

w o k Using this new infrastructure, however, the artist mayindicate a simple way that people could link back to acommercial site to secure rights beyond those grantedautomatically. The 'Commons Deed" signals that abilitythrough a new icon, and a link from that icon to theappropriate site.

Thus, th e Commons Deed now looks like this:


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Q i i n g on the pennis&mns beyond" icon wwld then takeyou to a awnmercial site - again, not mn by CmatkCamwns - where the tenns for the rights beyond thosep n t e d by CC l i i ould be negotiated. In thiiEosmple, the Pump Audio l i i ooks ike this:

There is no limit to the commercial opportunities het mightbe specified beyond those in the CC h m e . The CC+link could be o a site that o h ne the ability to purchasea CD M t-shirt with a specific photo that is l i d dera W i e ommons license. Or, thii CCt link addfiionallycould be to an agency that sells unnmerdal rights to thatphoto. The protocd is a general faciri o link CC licensedwork with mmardal opportunitk Anyone may use thiiprotocd to enable hybrid creaMy (See W2-t Technical

Implementation" docmrent).This new protocol offers an obvious opportunw forCrearire Commons rlcensad content to providecompetition to propreby commercial content Becausethe bmasbudure permits any rights o g a n h h or agentto be named to handle rights beyond those granted by theCC icense, CCt enmurages cornpethion ammg hese. .o w agencies Since CCt gives asatas away to monetize uses beyond the noncanmial sharingenabled by the lntemet, CCC encourages arbbts to maketheir WMk available using this infrastnrdure. findb,becarrse the CC licenses have become pewas.=stamlards with h g e s d e adoption for user-gemmtedmntent licenses, organhatans trying to build businessesm n d such content will have an obvious incentive to usethe standards set by Creatii Commons rather thanreinventing he wheel by building their own.


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CC+ Technical Implementationfor the World Wide Webhttp:llcreativecommons.orglprojectsIeeplus

aeative Commons provides free copyight licenseswhich empowers authors and creators to mark theirMi ith the freedom they intend i t to cany. In thisdocument, we describe the implementation of atechnology we've developed to enable a simple click-through to rights or opportunities beyond those offered inthe CC license. See this document's non-technicalcompanion, 'CC and CCt for the World Wide Web" fora wnceptual description of this approach.

OverviewThe round-trip mplementation consists of two operations:

1. Publishing a creative work along with a CreativeCommons license plus (+) a 'more permissions"link on a web page.

2. Readlng the more permissons link

The first operation will be implemented by a publisher,typically with sofhvare running on a web server. Thesecond operation will be implemented by a client,typically a web browser or web service, like one that doesweb mashups.

An application developer only needs to implement theoperations in scope of the a f o m t i o n e d client andlorserver a p p l i i n developed.

PublishingCC license

W n g a notice that a aeative work on the web has beenCreative Commons licensed is done with a W andlor@aphid noti= visible on a web p w with a lid to thel- used markedup n the undewng html For emple:

'My ycng' is license= under ca r e l - ' l i c e n s e 'hrrf= 'h t tp : i /crsa t ivecumns.org/ I lcenses /bysa i3 .O / ' ; .CC W;-SAc/s>.

More permissions ink

Adding a mare permissions link simply consists of linkingto a page where more permissions for a work areavailable and annotating that ink For example:

' M y Song I s I censsd under


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XMP (extensible Metadata Platform) Facilitates embeddimgmetadata in files using a subset of RDF. Most notably, XMP

supports embedding metadata in PDF and many imageformats. though it is designed to support neatly any file type.

Creative Commons reconunemls XMP as the preferredformat for embedded rnetadata, given b suppart fornumerous file formats and the ba lkan id state of embeddedmetadata standards. Others are coming to a similarconclusion; Microsoft has announced support for XMP inV I ppliilcatms[ll and Jon Udell not- "Them's slso goodsupport in .NET Framework 3.0 for reading and writing XMPmetadatan[21 Note that even when embedded with XMPmetadata, Creative Commons recommends a licenseddocument include a visible copyright notice. Format-specificrecommendations for visible notices are available in the

('Aeafive Commons wikif31.

The Creatii Commons licensing process offers an XMPtemplate as part of the licens selection process which maybe used to mark files within XMP-supporting Adobeapplications.

Specifying License Information

XMP defines a rights management schema IXMP Spec 421.Creative Commons sets the following properties:

xmpRightt:Marksd - ndicates this is a protectedresource; Fake if Public Domain. True otherwise.

xmpRight%WebStatement -The location of a webpage describing the owner and/or rights statement forthis resource; for example, MtpJIexampkcom/pdf-metadatahtml. Creative Commons recommends hisresource contain embedded, machine-readablemetadata.

xmpRiihtrr:UsageTenns - An optional fielddescribing lwal terms of use; Creative Commonsrecommends that when present this take the form

Thi s w r k i s IicellSSO tO t he publ ic under m e CreacvsCmm Attr ibut ion-SharaAiike IIcsnse

h m : f / c r e a t i - m a , o rg / i i c m s a s / b y - s a / ? , O / verify a t

h ~ i l e x a m p l a c o n ~ p d r - m g t ~ d ~ t e ~ h u n l

(Replace URL following 'verify at' with URL containingmetadata about the XMP-embedded file; this ia typically

the URL specified by anpRigM8:WebStatsment.)

We also defme a h a t i v e Commons schema~ J I c x e a ~ m o n s . o r g I n & hose common prefix is cc.It currently has the following properties:

l i The license URL; for example,hUp: / /c rea t ivewmmons.orgl l icenses /by~

moraPermicuions - A URL where additionalpermissions (commercial icensing, etc) are adable.This URL should typically be exposed in a "dickable'fashion, providing publishers with an opporlunw odme Mi ack to the originating site.

attributionURL -The URL to use when attributingthis work

a th ibu t ionhme -The cmator's pretened name touse when attributing this work.

Verification Links and XMPA publisher can add boost wmidence in embeddedrnetadata by providing a verifying web statement. A verifyingweb statement is a URL which contains metadata with

assertions matching those embedded in the file. Thediirence is that instead of making the assertions about aURL, the assertions are made in reference to the SHA-1 hashof the file.

For example, the example web statementMtpJIexample.wd~metadatahtml would include metadataencoded as RDFa.

cp>The documem evample.pdP i s licensed lower a Ii-s.


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When processing a file ccntaining an embedded webstatement, an appl i i ion can retrieve the statement and

parse it for addiiional mtadata. If matching assert.m arefound which apply to the calculated SHA-1 hash of the file,the application can display an indicator noting increasedconfidence m the metadata This approach has the addedbenefit of taking advantage of an existing mechanism(copy~ight takedown procedures) in order to break theconfidence in the case of inappropriately licensed material,thereby limiting liabilii.

References

EMP Spec1 "XMP Specification (September 2006)".httpfIw..adobe.com/devneffapl

License

This document is licensed under the Creative CommonsA t t n i o n 3.0 license; license infonnatksn is available at

Mtp://creativecommons.o@ice~I3.0/.

More InformationPlease visa MtpJhviki.creativewmmonaorgMMP

Or please contact m atMtpJIaeativecanmons.orglcontact

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Introduction to Using Creative Commons