The beginning of Creative Commons is linked to Mickey Mouse (Geere). Just as the copyright for Mickey Mouse was about to expire, the U.S. government passed acts which extended the copyright. This happened like clockwork–during the 60s, 70s, and the 80s (Geere). In the 90s–1998 to be specific–the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act was passed, which extended copyrights another 20 years (Geere). Enter Eric Eldred. Eldred, a business owner who ran a website that reprinted works with expired copyrights, was clearly in danger. With Sonny Bono in place, Eldred saw that he would not have any new works to reproduce for the next 20 years (Geere). He decided to bring his case to court (Geere). Armed with a group of professionals, including an MIT professor and a Harvard staff-member, Eldred argued that the act was unconstitutional (Geere). The court case, and further appeals (even up to the Federal Supreme Court level), was lost (Geere).
The group of professionals did not take this as defeat. They branded themselves Creative Commons and took matters into their own hands. The goal of Creative Commons was this: “The Creative Commons will provide a free set of tools to enable creators to share aspects of their copyrighted works with the public” (Geere). They made this known to the world with their 2002 press release, which also brilliantly said: “We stand on the shoulders of giants by revisiting, reusing, and transforming the ideas and works of our peers and predecessors” (Geere). Publicity was brought to Creative Commons because of its Supreme Court Case. Subsequently, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation donated $1,000,000 to Creative Commons which solidified the movement (Geere). By the next year, 2003, Creative Commons got access to one million works (Geere). As of 2011, Creative Commons has gained access to 350 million works (Geere).
The fight over the rights to one’s work spans back to year 561 in Ireland (Geere). Two saints, Columba and Finian, got into a feud over who had rights to the copies Columba made of Finian’s book (Geere). The feud was so intense that a battle was fought to determine who had copies’ rights (Geere). People died and Columba exiled himself from Ireland (Geere). In about a thousand years–with the invention of the printing press–printing companies had exclusive rights to whatever books it printed-rights neither public or even the author had (Geere)! The Statute of Anne act of 1709 remedied this issue (Geere). The act limited publishers’ rights to works to 14 years (Geere). As Duncan Geere puts it, The Statute of Anne “created the concept of a public domain for the first time, where the general public owns a creative work” (Geere).
Now, because of Creative Commons, art, science, and other forms of media are being made available for public use at an amazing rate. A new wave of creators are realizing there is more to be gained socially than financially by giving up their rights. This is happening all over the world, as Creative Commons intends.
This yields both good news and bad news. On one hand, more information is more accessible and more easily spread, which results in further remixing of works/information and more learning opportunities. However, as some photographers have noted, users can misinterpret or avoid the proper Creative Commons license on their works and use them for profit, without having permission. One photographer had this to say:
“The CC standard says that photographers should get credit, but I discovered that I was not being credited and that there were occasions when the photos were being ascribed to other photographers. On another occasion I found an all rights reserved copyright photo being used. It had been taken from Flickr. The photo was removed and the people who took it told me that they thought it was available for use, even though it was marked. There are people out there who think Flickr equals free to use.” (Scott).
Thus in a world that’s becoming Creative Commons friendly, it is still in the creator’s best interest to make sure their work is licensed correctly (Bert-Erboul).
Sources:
Bert-Erboul, Clément. “The Creative Commons . A third way between public domain and community? “, Sociological and Anthropological Research. 2015. online 21 April 2016. Web. Accessed 24 February 2017.
Geere, Duncan. “The history of Creative Commons.” WIRED UK. WIRED UK, 22 May 2016. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
Scott, Katie. “What does Creative Commons mean for photography?” WIRED UK. WIRED UK, 23 May 2016. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.
Randell, John. Creative Commons logo, 3 Mar. 2010. Web. 24 Feb. 2017.