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This month, iCommons’ resident copyright expert, Tobias Schonwetter, explains why CC licensing needs copyright law and why some of us need a change of attitude to make CC an even greater success in the future.
I think the Creative Commons license scheme is extremely useful and socially more important than ever in order to obtain an even freer culture. At the same time, however, I do believe in copyright protection – certainly not in all its current detail, as should be clear from my previous columns, but as a general concept to stimulate the creation of new works. This is not to say that such stimulation by means of copyright protection is always necessary (and as a matter of fact, the success of Creative Commons proves the contrary) but I believe that without copyright protection less works would be created to the detriment of our culture and society at large.
A statement like the above often provokes the accusations of either having a split personality or of not being able to stick to one’s principles. Of course, this is not the case, as I will endeavour to demonstrate below. Yet more disturbingly, a pro-copyright statement made within the Creative Commons community – even if it is phrased as half-heartedly as mine – seems to trigger the desire in some to respond in an amazingly inappropriate manner. This was last illustrated when Danica from Belgrade in Serbia complained via the iCommons’ mailing list about the verbatim reproduction of her CC-licensed blog on a Chinese website which uses banner advertisement. Danica was outraged because she had not given her consent. Somewhat regrettably, Danica used words like stealing of her intellectual property, plagiarism, infringement, cybercrime etc. in her initial mail. Legally, the case was rather simple to solve and her complaint was, in my opinion, unfounded – although the fact that advertisement had been placed on the site added a nice little twist with regard to the discussion of the meaning of the ‘non-commercial’ element in CC licenses. Unfortunately, Danica was attacked by some of the participants of the mailing list in an unacceptable manner which was, to say the least, quite embarrassing for everybody involved in our movement. I know for a fact that Danica was not only surprised by these responses but, understandably, also personally affronted.
In my view, the general implications of this incident are even more worrying. After all, the hostile attitude shown by some of the list members forms one of the greatest threats for the success of the entire CC movement. Danica represents the large and tremendously important group of people for the future growth of CC who do not know (enough) yet about CC and its underlying ideas but who are, in general, positive about its objectives. Rather than scaring these people away or attacking them for their dissenting views, we should try to explain our opinions objectively and in doing so convince them to join us. We surely do have the better arguments on our side and therefore there is no need to intimidate or insult others - this serves solely as an indication of weakness. We must not fool ourselves: Knowing that millions of works are already licensed under a CC license, reading about CC in the specialised press and elsewhere as well as meeting hundreds of like-minded people at conferences such as the recent iSummit in Dubrovnik does by no means mean that we have accomplished all our goals. Creative Commons is not as well known as we want to believe some times, not even by the most relevant groups for the movement, namely artists, policy makers and, well, lawyers. For instance, the university I am affiliated with at the moment, the University of Cape Town in South Africa, was recently once again ranked the best university on the African continent. So there is clearly a lot of knowledge produced down here. Yet, I would be surprised if more than, say, half a dozen people have heard about Creative Commons at this institution. When Heather Ford asked the audiences at the beginning of the events at the recent Free Culture Tours who actually knew what CC or iCommons was, she was met with a very limited amount of affirmative responses (which, by the way, is one reason why I think this tour was necessary and a huge success).
Even if people have heard about CC, there is still a lot of (irrational) scepticism we have to deal with, especially from artists who often develop an almost emotional relationship with their creative works and who fear that they would give too much away by using a CC license. I tried, for example, to explain the (in my mind obvious) advantages of the publication and distribution of works under CC licenses to a DJ friend of mine, who possesses much potential, but makes little profit from his own music... with no success whatsoever. So at best, the groundwork is laid for Creative Commons and we are about to enter the next phase of trying to really win over the masses to partially opt out of the statutory copyright regime by means of a CC license. We will certainly not succeed on this path if we snub interested people - like Danica.
It is my interpretation, that Lessig’s withdrawal from the current copyright debate and from CC’s top position a few weeks ago confirms my assessment since it was arguably driven by his awareness that another era is about to begin for CC and that, for the way ahead, a less controversial and more mediatorial figure is needed at the top.
Speaking of Lessig brings me back to what I began this column with: My belief that a certain degree of copyright protection is necessary to encourage the creation of some new works. Lessig is of the same opinion and has stated on numerous occasions that Creative Commons licensing is not aiming at destroying copyright. A closer legal look reveals that any other interpretation would mean that the CC license scheme is seriously flawed as these licenses are based on copyright law. In other words, the abolishment of copyright law would effectively tear down the very foundation on which CC licenses are built - clearly a disturbing discovery for many in the movement. In essence, CC licenses were just invented for all those people who do not want to exercise all of the rights copyright law affords them. But again, all this does not mean that the way copyright law is shaped at present is just and sound. Far from it!
tags: cape-town south africa policy-law copyright-law policy creative-commons
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Good summary and evaluation of what happened, though I think you may be taking the whole "incident" somewhat too seriously... such arguments will take place and the discussion will be heated at times when one uses words like "theft" and "crime", which some in the community are very sensitive about. Two things come to mind: firstly, we need to try much harder to educate creatives/bloggers, etc. on copyright and CC, and secondly, we need to be more sensitive to the needs and concerns of the broader community, which consists of many people who may have a friendly disposition towards CC but whose views on IP are not necessarily more liberal or progressive.
In other words, it is OK for someone to be angry that someone "stole" their content, as well as it is OK for someone else to state that this was not "stealing" and explain why, though hopefully in a manner that is meant to educate and not offend or irritate.
giorgos · Singapore (Singapore) · Sep 06th, 2007 8:06 pm
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If the so-called "extremists" think that their job is to eliminate IP and copyrights from the face of the earth, they are here for the wrong reason. Creative Commons can only exist if there *are* copyrights. Creative Commons is copyright in itself. Tobias has rightly mentioned that a certain degree of copyright is required to promote creativity, innovation and for motivation.
And it is our job to make resources widely available to the "commons" so that access to them does not remain restricted to the affluent.
As Locke had argued, it’s okay to privatize parts of the commons as long
as “enough and as good” is left for everyone forever. The Information Commons should remain rich, vibrant and intriguing - so that they can be used for the "common good".
Kudos to Tobias for penning this illuminating article. I, personally, am hugely inclined towards the propagation of free-culture, but at the same time realise the significance of IP in the development of the society. There would be general agreement among most of our participants that exclusivity to licensing, especially in the cases of patents and copyrights is sometimes abused to stifle competition and fair trade. Hence, copyright is an evil, albeit a necessary one. :-)
Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington · Ahmedabad (India) · Sep 30th, 2007 3:49 am
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