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CC Certificate for Educators - Fall 2022
You surf the Web, enjoying the travel along an uncharted virtual landscape, happily perusing the unfolding multitude of images, text and sound that expands with each click. Plenty of knowledge at your fingertips! Suddenly, something unfamiliar catches your eye. It's not very intrusive, you barely missed it because it's squeezed in a corner of the page you are looking at this very moment. It looks like this:
Enticed by the funny artwork, you click on a link nearby, letting yourself being transported to an unkown site. You are disappointed. It seems to be legal gibberish of some sort. Well, still, let me check out their home page https://creativecommons.org. Hmm, what is this!?:
Seriously, these guy claim to have over 2,000,000,000 works under their belt – are they trying to monopolzye the Web, or what!?
Who are these people? One guy sticks out, he is the founding director and the only emeritus on the board, and goes by the name of Lawrence Lessig. 🔗
He is a law professor. You are not particularly fond of lawyers, but it would be fair to give this guy the benefit of the doubt…
Fast forward a few hours later. Your head is spinning, you are a bit dazed.
Who would have thought that the stories surrounding the topic of copyright could feel like an epic struggle! So it goes like this: In the US, copyright law came into existance in 1790 with an initial period of protection of 14 years 🔗. Surprisingly, this initial decision was over and over again happily extended by Congress and so it managed to reach a timespan of 50 years. Yet another Congressional action, called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, would add another 20 years on top. It was enacted in 1998.
You make a mental note: you still have to research why this act was nicknamed Mickey Mouse Protection Act…
But this extension and act were finally challenged by Eric Eldred, who was building a growing collection of public-domain works, like Grimms' Fairy Tales, by scanning old books and making them available for free. So Eldred saw the value of the public domain, which is the heavenly state where all copyright works finally go to and stay there forever happily.
Long story short, Lessig become involved in Eldred's battle, culminating in a hearing in front of the Supreme Court. But this is not a fairy tale, which ends happily. Lessig argued for Eldred in the hearing, and in a heartwrenching account he tells the story how he thinks that he lost the case for Eldred. 🔗 His account also gives a fascinating glimp into the workings of the Supreme Court, you think.
But maybe this epic defeat may have lead to an epic victory after all, you wonder. How so? Well, Lessig and others recognized the underlying tension that led to Eldred's battle: Copyright forbids via its granting of exclusive rights, but Internet enables via transporting vast quantities of information, including copyrighted works, in a split second from one person to another.
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Presentation The Power of Open Educational Resources by David Wiley, slide 32, CC BY 4.0, cropped from original and border added
Lessig and others started the Creative Commons (CC) nonprofit organization and thereafter issued a suite of CC licenses. These licenses are based on copyright, but "hack" copyright in a non-obvious way by weakening its default restrictions (exclusive rights). This approach was, perhaps, inspired by Richard Stallman's copyleft idea. (SA certainly mirrored copyleft 🔗). The CC license suite eased the tension between copyright and the Internet, in effect it did "create a DMZ [demilitarized zone] for the copyright wars" (Cory Doctorow). 🔗
Looking at the people and stories surrounding CC, you are starting to realize that the licenses are important, but that CC is more than its licenses: It is a vision of sharing, it is a community of like-minded people that spans around the globe. CC has started out in the US, but its Global Network has now 48 chapters. You are all fired up to join, but you are not a "recognizable name in the community" 🔗 – yet! So you make yourself a promise to change that soon.
You feel a bit sheapish now that you initially thought that CC was monpolizing the Web. It's more the opposite, it allows people to connect with each other in unexpected ways via their creations – and without being inhibited by copyright law. Every creator is free to choose wether s/he wants to be part of that connection.
You feel you may have managed to puzzle the pieces together for yourself. Copyright is not good or bad per se, but its current expression is grounded in calcified big business thinking and pre-Internet technology. Ever-extending copyright and ever-expanding Internet led to a clash of cultures, culminating in the Eldred case. Out of the shambles, the CC licenses emerged. But CC is more than its licenses – or it can be if you decide to become active in the CC Global Network.
All right, you are very satisfied with yourself – you have figured out Creative Commons! But wait a minute, what does commons actually mean?, you are starting to wonder. But, you think, figuring this on out should be quick and simple by comparison…
Some remarks/issues related to CC licensing:
Hi Paul,
the provided link should show you the document in view mode. If you are interested, you have the option
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