Creative Commons:Have your Copyright

and Share it Too

Chuck MillerMissouri Botanical Garden

TDWG 2008 FremantleOctober 24, 2008

Copyright

• Common Law – Printer has perpetual right to copy• 1710 - Statute of Anne – created time limit• 1787 – US Constitution

– To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

• 1886 – Berne Convention – International copyright– US signed in 1989

• 1910 – Buenos Aires Convention• 1995 – World Trade Organization, TRIPS• 2002 – WIPO Copyright Treaty• 2000 – US Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act

– Life of the author plus 70 years– For works of corporate authorship 120 years after creation or 95

years after publication, whichever endpoint is earlier

Copyright

• Does not cover ideas and information themselves, only the form or manner in which they are expressed

• Berne Convention – copyright is automatic– US required © Copyright until 1989

• Work for Hire – owned by employer

• Fair Use – US exception

• Public Domain -

What Right?

• To produce copies or reproductions of the work and to sell those copies

• To import or export the work

• To create derivative works (works that adapt the original work)

• To perform or display the work publicly

• To transmit or display by radio or video

• To sell or assign these rights to others

Public Domain

After copyright expiration

US - Sonny Bono = all prior to1923

Varies widely, worldwide

Pirate Theory

• Creative work has value; whenever I use, or take, or build upon the creative work of others, I am taking from them something of value.

• Whenever I take something of value from someone else, I should have their permission.

• The taking of something of value from someone else without permission is wrong.

• It is a form of piracy.

Larry Lessig, Free Culture

• A nonprofit corporation established in Massachusetts with its home at Stanford University.

• Aims to build a layer of reasonable copyright on top of the extremes that now reign.

• Make it easy for people to build upon other people’s work, by making it simple for creators to express the freedom for others to take and build upon their work.

• Using simple tags, tied to human-readable descriptions, tied to bulletproof licenses

CC 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

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CC License Intent

• Legal license

• Human-readable description

• Machine-readable tags

Legal License

Human Readable Description

Machine-Readable Tags

48 Countries

HTML

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by/2.5/au/88x31.png" /></a><br />This work is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/au/">Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License</a>.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Australia License.

CC Terms

Attribution You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.

Noncommercial. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only

No Derivative Works. You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Share Alike. You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

Public Domain Dedication

“Dedicator intends this dedication to be an overt act of relinquishment in perpetuity of all present and future rights under copyright law, whether vested or contingent,”

Deed vs License

• You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work

• You must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties.

License• You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section

4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution ("Attribution Parties") in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; the title of the Work if supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and, consistent with Section 3(b) in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative Work

• The credit required by this Section 4(b) may be implemented in any reasonable manner

• You must, unless a request has been made pursuant to Section 4(a), keep intact all copyright notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym, if applicable) if supplied, and/or (ii) if the Original Author and/or Licensor designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute, publishing entity, journal) for attribution ("Attribution Parties") in Licensor's copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means, the name of such party or parties; the title of the Work if supplied; to the extent reasonably practicable, the Uniform Resource Identifier, if any, that Licensor specifies to be associated with the Work, unless such URI does not refer to the copyright notice or licensing information for the Work; and, consistent with Section 3(b) in the case of a Derivative Work, a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Derivative Work

• The credit required by this Section 4(b) may be implemented in any reasonable manner

Caveats

• Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights.

• Nothing in this license is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use, first sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the copyright owner under copyright law or other applicable laws

More Caveats

• Creative Commons is not a party to this License, and makes no warranty whatsoever in connection with the Work

• Creative Commons does not authorize the use by either party of the trademark "Creative Commons" or any related trademark or logo of Creative Commons without the prior written consent of Creative Commons.

Enforcement

• Recent court decision upheld the enforceability of a Creative Commons license via court injunction– United States only

• International enforcement unknown

Problems

• No standard method(s) for permanently attaching the “manner of attribution” to the licensed object is defined by Creative Commons

• No options to restrict obscene or illegal use of a work– Author’s moral rights

TDWG Impact

• Meta-data needed for licensing– Additive to Copyright metadata– Terms of license , “manner of attribution”

• Current tags:– dc:rights – used by EOL for “manner of attribution”

• Public Domain?• Copyright denial?

– dcterms:rightsHolder– dcterms:bibliographicCitation

• Tags needed:– License – which license is given by righstHolder

Thanks