Creative Commons

The Spectrum of Rights

Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a “some rights reserved” copyright.

Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which “all rights reserved” (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare “some rights reserved.”

There is a comic on wikipedia that explains the creative commons principals in very easy terms here

TV Links shut down for linking - The Guardian Blog

According to a report in The Guardian: "A 26-year-old man from Cheltenham was arrested on Thursday in connection with offences relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the internet, Fact said."

The arrest and the closure of the site - www.tv-links.co.uk - came during an operation by officers from Gloucestershire County Council trading standards in conjunction with investigators from Fact and Gloucestershire Police.
Fact claims that tv-links.co.uk was providing links to illegal film content that had been camcorder recorded from cinemas and then uploaded to the internet. The site also provided links to TV shows that were being illegally distributed.

It's a pity the Gloucestershire Police started with such small fry. There are a couple of multibillionaires called Larry Page and Sergey Brin -- the founders of Google -- who provide vast numbers of links to content that is being illegally distributed. Indeed, as everyone knows, they actually host plenty of illegal content on their own video site, YouTube, which has a UK operation.

Is the message that it's less criminal to host illegal content on YouTube than it is to to link to it from a site such as TV Links? Or is it just that FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) and the police won't tackle anybody with enough high-powered lawyers to fight back? Is The New Freedom blog correct in saying: "They just have so much money that they have become above the law."

Of course, there is a difference between building a site around links to content that could be presumed to lack copyright clearance and linking unintentionally from a site set up for a different purpose. However, I'm not a lawyer so I don't know how significant this is. (Is shoplifting OK if you have a proper job but criminal if you're unemployed and starving?)

It will be interesting to see who FACT picks on next. There are plenty of newspaper journalists who nowadays, as part of their proper jobs, link to YouTube videos and other internet content. It would be amazing if every single bit of material -- some of it "repurposed" -- had full and correct copyright clearance.

In future, do I risk being thrown in the slammer for linking directly to a YouTube video? What if I just say "go to Google and search for [YouTube xxx yyy]" or whatever? Oh dear, I forgot, Google's illegal so that will have to be closed down.

Perhaps I am already breaking the law by linking to Google, YouTube, TV Links, Pirate Bay and other sites that link to illegal content because this must also count as contributing to "the facilitation of copyright infringement on the internet" -- and, by the way, I expect you are breaking the law if you link to or even read this story.

Indeed, if linking is illegal, we might as well shut down the Internet, because there is no practical way anybody can guarantee the legality of what's on the end of any link. Even if you could guarantee it at the time of linking, there's no guarantee it would still be legal less than a second later, or for the rest of time.


Click here for all the replies to the Guardian blog post

Good Copy Bad Copy

This recent documentary is all about copyright, intellectual property rights, culture and the changing times. The greater part of the hour-long film is primarily on the music industry, but also covers filesharing, the film industry and legal issues both in the USA and other parts of the world (such as Sweden nd Nigeria). It features interviews with Danger Mouse, Girl Talk, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Lawrence Lessig from creative commons, and many others. These give their perspective on copyright, piracy, free culture and the way forward.

The film skips around the world, showing the changing attitudes toward art and culture in Nigeria, Sweden, Brazil, the UK, and the US, answering statements about incentives and creativity by the MPAA and IFPI by showing us real artists (like Danger Mouse and Girl Talk) making wonderful art, defying the current copyright standard in many of the world's richest countries.

It is clear that this is a vast subject; the law is inconsistent in all territories. TBC

Wikipedia Copyright page

Wiki isn't usually seen as reliable enough to submit for college research, but let's face it, there's a ton of good links off here, and it is 90% accurate. Read it here.

Intelectual Property Rights site

WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?

Copyright protects creative or artistic works. You should only copy or use a copyrighted work with the copyright owner's permission.

Copyright protects:

literature, including novels, instruction manuals, computer programs, song lyrics, newspaper articles, website content and some types of database

drama, including dance or mime

music

art, including paintings, engravings, photographs, sculptures, collages, architecture, technical drawings, diagrams, maps and logos

layouts used to publish a work, for a book

recordings of a work, including sound and film

broadcasts of a work.

Copyright applies to any medium. This means that you must not reproduce copyright protected work in another medium without permission. This includes, publishing photographs on the internet, making a sound recording of a book, and so on.

Copyright does not protect ideas for a work. However, when an idea is fixed, for example in writing, copyright automatically protects it. This means that you do not have to apply for copyright.

A copyright protected work can have more than one copyright, or another intellectual property right, connected to it. For example, an album of music can have separate copyrights for individual songs, sound recordings, artwork, and so on, whilst, copyright protects the artwork of your logo, but you could also register the logo as a trade mark.

BENEFITS OF COPYRIGHT PROTECTION

Copyright allows you to protect your original material and stops others from using your work without your permission. The existence of copyright may be enough on its own to stop others from trying to exploit your material. If it does not, it gives you the right to take legal action to stop them exploiting your copyright and to claim damages.

By understanding and using your copyright protection, you can:

* sell the copyright but retain the moral rights

* license your copyright for use by others but retain the ownership

* object if your work is distorted or mutilated.

What if I do not enforce my copyright?

If you do not enforce your copyright, you will allow others to copy your work without having to seek permission.