…for the summer of 2010 (which has already been too hot, too cool, too wet, and too dry) the focus of Odyssey Online is going to be the Creative Commons. We are going to work through the Creative Commons from theory to practice, and hopefully create a small body of work that could the be the basis for reflection on the Creative Commons, and whether it indeed speaks to where digital publication mediums might take human creativity.
First, then, definitions. Creative Commons is all about copyright, or, rather, making copyright viable and elastic for this culture of the Internet.
On January 14th, as part of SLU Techfest ’10 activities, Librarians Paul Doty and Michelle Gillie joined Amy Hauber of the Fine Arts Department to present on Creative Commons Copyright Licenses. Michelle searched out and presented these Creative Commons basics:
The Creative Commons is not anti-copyright–what the creative commons strives to do is to create a copyright middle ground:
By using a combination of the licenses that CC makes available, creators retain the copyright to their work, and at the same time they can set limits that allow others to share it and build on it.
To accomplish this Creative Commons issues five types of licenses:
Attribution (abbreviated by): you can share, display, and perform this work, and any derivatives of this work, as long as you give credit to the original creator.
Share Alike (abbreviated sa): you may alter or build on this work and share it, but only if you do so using the same kind of Creative Commons license that was applied to the original.
Non-Commercial (abbreviated nc): you’re allowed to share this work, and anything derived from it, as long as you’re not going to make a profit.
Non-Derivative (abbreviated nd): you can share exact copies of this work, but you’re not allowed to alter it in any way.
[http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/]
With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify…
[http://creativecommons.org/choose/]
…more CC coming this pleasant summer Canton days…