This week’s blog assignment is to write about Creative Commons.
What is Creative Commons exactly? It is a non-profit organization which offers
artists of all media (art, music, and print) the option to alter the copyright
to his work.
Sharon Housley at RSS Specifications (http://www.rss-specifications.com/creative-commons.htm)
writes a clear picture of the exact nature of Creative Commons. She lists the different ways an artist can
change his copyright as follows:
NonCommercial
- A non-commercial license lets others copy, distribute, perform creative works
and derivative works, but only for noncommercial purposes (anyone using the
creative works cannot profit from it).
ShareAlike
- A ShareAlike license allows others to distribute derivative works under a
license identical to the one held by the original copyright holder.
NoDerivative
Works - A NoDerivative Works clause allows others to copy, distribute,
display and perform the exact copywritten works and no derivative works can be
created.
Attribution
- An Attribution license means creative works can be copied, distributed,
displayed, or performed and derivative works can be created, provided that
appropriate credit to the original copyright holder is given.
Many artists use Creative Commons to offer their art free of
charge to the public. They may want more
exposure for that specific work or for themselves as an artist. I hesitate to write more an artist’s reasons
to acquire a Creative Commons license because each artist would have his own
personal motivation - which might not include business reasons.
There are a number of sites that offer music, art, and
published works with Creative Common licenses.
Here are a few.
This site offers music of all genres for a monthly
membership fee of $15.00.
This site offers music with creative commons licenses at no
charge. You do need to register for an
account and they have a donate button located at the top of the page. Recently they have added a page to include individual
subscriptions to DRAM (Database of Recorded American Music) which has only
been offered to universities and libraries.
A donation is required for the individual subscription.
These sites offer listings of free video, photos, and music.
There is an interview with John Buckman, founder of Magnatune, at Rules for the Revolution which
was hosted by Colette Vogele which is required before writing this week’s
blog. It proves very interesting and
certainly clarifies Buckman’s stand on free downloading of music. His website offers free music downloads with
a membership requiring a monthly fee. Buchman
believes musicians should keep their rights to their music. He also explains Creative Commons and
describes how his company works.
Colette Vogele is a copyright attorney at Microsoft as well
as a President and co-founder of Without My Consent (a website
for artists who have their works taken without regard to their copyrights, founder of Rules for the Revolution where Ms Vogele offers podcasts about
copyright laws and Creative
Commons
There are a
number of other sites with Creative Commons projects and one has rapidly become
a favorite of mine. It is called The Commons and was put together by Flickr and The Library Of Congress. You will find
photos there that are part of the public’s photo archives as well as have the
opportunity to share any information you have about the photos posted on the
site.
A list of other
Creative Commons projects can be found at this site http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-creative-commons-projects-pay-attention/.
What I mentioned in this post is just a bit of what is available that will describe or explain Creative Commons and how they help artists.
No comments:
Post a Comment