Copyright Rulesets: Creative Commons

If I can opine upon users of the public domain/commons and owners of intellectual property, I say that there exists a cultural conflict in which users of the public domain are always looking to expand the public domain and commons into more intellectual property. As the read-write (R/W) culture has come to fruition in a digital age, the creative commons has become an adaptable ruleset that defines to what extent users are free to do with material designed to be read-only (R/O). If these rulesets did not exist, highly restrictive copyright laws would advertently make thieves of educators, collage artists, and communicators, thereby including people of all types and ages. The six license types of the Creative Commons (CC) allow creators to decide and choose a license that best fits their purpose. They include CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND, beginning with the most permissive license and ending with the least permissive license. These licenses prompt creators to think about why they would want to share their intellectual property and how they wish others will use their works. There are over 2 billion works registered with CC licenses. If creators don’t want to copyright their properties, there exists a public dedication tool called the CC Zero (CC0), which allows creators to give up their copyright and put their works into the worldwide public domain. CC0 allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, with no conditions. This encourages owners to create and disperse their content for the best interests of other people. As Ian Lane included in his case study this week, people can share collective intelligence through networking much more conveniently online. Collective intelligence refers to the idea of a shared intelligence that stems from the collaboration of individuals in a community (Guadiana, 2020). Although this collective intelligence is useful, imagine all the copyright suits that result from direct re-distribution of certain types of intellectual property, as once was undefined in the world. As R/O material was adapted and redistributed into R/W instruments of culture, licensing needed to come into play. The six CC licenses are examples of good laws. CC BY allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. Many music producers today on Soundcloud use samples under CC BY to distribute adapted works, attributing the creators in name only, and without permission most of the time. Consider Savannah Myers case study in which she brought up Post Malone’s growth on the platform by distributing sampled music licensed in name only. Continuing on to the next license, CC BY-SA allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. Many formal remixes use material licensed with this, as the name and title stay the same and commercial use is allowed. Consider Kadin Bertucci’s case study on Queen’s “stolen” bassline when thinking about this. Since Vanilla Ice purchased the copyright from Queen, this is an example of where he could still commercially make money off of the song after retaining the copyright from Queen, and since he did change the bassline somewhat in timbre. The next license, CC BY-NC, allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The rest of the licenses only allow reusers to redistribute in an non-adaptable form, preserving the original creator’s work. The last two licenses vary in whether or not they can be used commercially and distributed in an identical way. CC licenses allow users with creative intentions to safely and effectively use works of other creators through following the rulesets of the licenses, preventing any unnecessary trouble to the remixers if they follow the rulesets.