Creative Commons holds out all sorts of promise. At present, of course, if you create something on the Web — a blog entry, or an audio file you’ve posted, or whatever — full (c) attaches automatically. It would be an enormous victory if one could change the default from full (c) protection on the Web to some form of friendlier (cc). I’m thinking that “by attribution” makes sense, but one could make a case for other (cc) licenses. So, couldn’t we get blog software developers to build (cc) into RSS feeds and other XML docs automatically, as the default? Roger and others have pointed out that embedding the license is already done, sometimes. It strikes me that it would be great news if the default with all RSS feeds was a (cc) license, with the understanding that someone could opt out, back to a (c) if they wanted — just switch the presumption. It makes sense, too. People wouldn’t be offering up the RSS feeds if they didn’t want people to share the information in some fashion anyway; there’s sort of an implied license already. Why not ratify that in code?
The logical extension of the idea is to work with standards creators of other sorts to try to embed (cc) licenses into various other forms of automated XML document creation. Why let the default of (c) stand? I recognize that the open source community thought of a purer spin of this idea long ago, and that the GPL and MIT and other licenses represent a common instance of resetting the default away from (c). Glenn Otis Brown and Larry Lessig and the rest of the Creative Commons brain-trust have likely already thought of this, too. Perhaps the software community will make it easy for the non-technical, growing blogging community to adopt (cc) as their default. Perhaps it’s time for a call to arms for blog software developers to reset the default to (cc).
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John, this is a great idea.
I have one worry, though, about using CC licenses for blog entries in general. If, for example, you choose an Attribution CC license (as you have), you license any use of the work by another person. But is it clear what the “work” covered by your license is?
The license circularly defines “Work” as being “the copyrightable work of authorship offered under the terms of this License.”
This leaves no bright line test for the CC licensee to determine what bit of your blog entry is indeed “copyrightable” and thus covered by the license and free to use.
As blogs continue to use tons of hyperlinks, and quote other peoples’ text (that is likely under copyright), within blog entries, the burden is now shifted to the licensee to determine how much of your entry is indeed covered by your license.
Is there some conceivable way that an author may tag certain parts of an entry that he/she believes are indeed copyrightable portions of his/her work and hence licensed for free use. My worry is not about non-copyrightable portions of the work, but those that are protected by someone else’s copyright. I presume that fair use by one author (original blog entrant) does not always translate into fair use by another.
I look forward to hearing your views on this one.
Good point. I also quote quite often and consider it “fair use”. But is there a length of quoting which is legal and when does it become illegal?
Best
R
I discovered “Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials” today:
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm
Well, I didn’t answer yet my question about the length of a quote.
If you know something about that, let me know.
Best
R