Creative Commons coordinates a new kind of licensing system, designed to supplement the "all rights reserved" of traditional copyright with an alternative: "some rights reserved". Works thus licensed can be borrowed from, developed and modified - creating, proponents argue, a more fertile ground for new ideas in the long run. The original term of US copyright was 14 years. Now it's the lifetime of the author, plus 70 years. But the fact that the term is limited at all shows that the law recognises what we all, in some nebulous way, understand: intellectual products aren't quite like other kinds of property. That family heirloom you've passed down through generations won't ever, under normal circumstances, revert to the public domain. So why should an out-of-print novel? Because the production of ideas relies on two opposing ingredients: not just a system of ownership, which allows people to profit from their creations, but also a healthy public domain, which provides the raw material that ideas spring from, and where free collaboration can bring new ideas into being. One way to guarantee a flourishing public domain is to limit the length of time for which works are protected. Another is to limit the degree to which they are protected. Which is where Creative Commons - started by the Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig - comes in.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/07/2005 09:56:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
