Creative Commons — What the different options mean for content owners and content users
In recent times, there has been a continuing move by institutions and other copyright content owners towards the use of Creative Commons. Most recently (in February of this year), The Met moved 375,000 of their images onto the Creative Commons Zero license. At PastPortal we support this move towards the creative commons licenses, but not all creative commons licenses are created equal and some creative commons licenses won’t be suitable for some content owners. We’re writing this post as a short introduction to the topic to help content owners (and content users) navigate the differences between the Creative Commons licenses. In a follow-up post we will explore the trends in the use of Creative Commons by museums and other institutions more closely and some more practical considerations in making work available under one of these licenses.
The different aspects of Creative Commons licenses
In our opinion, the easiest way to understand the different Creative Commons licenses is to break them down into their different aspects: the different rights and usage restrictions that are included under each license. Let’s start with perhaps the most controversial:
Commercial vs Non-Commercial
The Creative Commons licenses are split into those that allow commercial exploitation of the material (subject to any other restrictions in the license) and those that don’t. A Creative Commons license that doesn’t allow exploitation for commercial purposes will include the letters “NC” in it’s name (e.g. CC BY-NC).
While the purposes of such a restriction appear obvious at first, this has been one of the more controversial aspects of the Creative Commons licenses. The reason it is controversial is that it makes the license largely incompatible with other open source licenses (often referred to as “copyleft”, such as the GNU license for software) and would appear to hit smaller enterprises that can hardly be called businesses hardest. For example, a blogger that makes spare change from Google Adwords would arguably fall foul of the definition of commercial being: “primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation”.
So the “NC” licenses remain the strongest way to ensure that your content is not exploited for profit without you granting a further license (normally in return for a payment), but it isn’t without its critics. What do these critics suggest is the best approach to maintaining potential revenue streams from commercial exploitation of their content? The answer is “Share Alike” — which we’ll look at next.
Share Alike
A Creative Commons license is share alike if it includes the letters “SA” in its name. Share Alike means that if someone remixes, transforms, or builds upon the material, it must be distributed under substantially the same license as the original. In the actual legal terms of the license, the definition of adapted material is potentially broader than this summary, including actions where the material is “ translated, altered, arranged, transformed, or otherwise modified…”.
Anybody who uses your material for commercial purposes in a manner in which it has been repackaged will run the risk that their material will also have to be available under a commercial commons license. To the extent this is unpalatable (i.e. they are a truly commercial enterprise looking to make a profit from the new material) they can pay you to separately license the material outside the creative commons regime. Thus, a share alike license may lead to a revenue stream for content owners if their content is to be exploited for commercial purposes. Equally, if you are looking to use Creative Commons material, you should be careful of how you use any content with the “SA” moniker in it’s license.
No-Derivatives
This links nicely with the “No-Derivatives” aspect of Creative Commons licenses, indicated by the inclusion of the letters “ND”. The “ND” licenses are intended to prevent copyrighted work being adapted or changed in a manner that the content owner doesn’t like. This type of license shares the definition of “Adapted Material” with the share alike licenses. Accordingly, there is some concern that the no derivatives condition is too broad and could prevent re-use of material in a manner that doesn’t alter it significantly from the original.
Of course, anybody wishing to use material protected by the no derivatives condition is able to seek a license extension from the content owner. However, they may not do so if they think they may be charged for the pleasure or wish to use the material quickly. The no-derivatives condition could therefore reduce the circulation of material under a Creative Commons license.
Attribution
A Creative Commons license that requires attribution is indicated by the use of the letters “BY” in its name. Attribution requires the following information to be made available by any user of the relevant content (to the extent such information is supplied by the licensor):
- identification of the creators and any others entitled to attribution, in any reasonable manner requested by the licensor;
- a copyright notice;
- a notice that refers to the Creative Commons license the content has been made available under and a link to (or a copy of) the full text of that license;
- a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties (although this is often satisfied through the link to the license itself);
- a URI or hyperlink to the source of the content, to the extent reasonably practicable; and
- an indication if the content has been modified by the user or previously modified by another person.
What is notable about the attribution aspect of the Creative Commons licenses is that it gives the licensor the ability to reasonably set the text of the attribution. For example, the Tate specifies that attribution should be made in the following format: “Artist Name; Title of the Image if there is one; © [Rights Holder] Photographic Rights © Tate (year), CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported), a link back to the material”.
However, the Creative Commons license does give the content user some freedom as to where to place the attribution. In the words of the licenses themselves: “You may satisfy the conditions in Section 3(a)(1) in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means, and context in which You Share the Licensed Material. For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy the conditions by providing a URI or hyperlink to a resource that includes the required information.” Thus a small hyperlink below the relevant use of the copyrighted material leading to the full attribution would satisfy the conditions of the Creative Commons licenses.
Creative Common Zero
We started this article by referring to the recent move to Creative Commons Zero licensing by the Met. The Creative Commons Zero license is special in that it doesn’t apply any of the restrictions we have explored above — the content is truly free to use and remix without attribution. Of course, this is a huge step for institutions and the Met has openly stated that it has only been able to do so due to the generosity of the Bloomberg Foundation.
Trends in the use of Creative Commons licenses and Practical Considerations
This is the first of a two post series on the use of Creative Commons licenses. In our next post we will consider the trends in the use of the licenses by museums and other institutions and explore some more practical considerations when making work available (or using work that is available) under Creative Commons licenses. To make sure that you don’t miss it, make sure to follow us on Medium or sign-up for our e-mail updates.
