Can I See Your License Please Sir?
Friday, April 23, 2010 at 10:13 PM 
Last weekend I was very happy to be part of a sit down between Creative Commons Korea, Tatter Media and Nanoomi.net and record a podcast discussing some of the copyright issues that are facing bloggers (like myself, and perhaps you dear reader) when it comes to creating and publishing work on the internet both here in Korea and around the world.
You will have to stay tuned for the podcast which is being carefully laced together from different sources by the little podcast elves down in the little podcast cave somewhere next to my hard drive under my desk.
However that doesn't mean you can't start licensing your work straight away. But why would you? As an author you have the complete and moral right to determine how people view and use your works, for example your photos, created images, recordings, music and of course writings. By implication they are all copyrighted by you and only you, and no one else can claim them for their own.
Which is fair enough. But what if what you've sung is so beautiful that someone wants to be able to share it?
Or what if you have written something so useful that not sharing it would be a loss, but you are afraid that your hard work will be ignored and worse maybe someone else will make a buck off of your internet blood, keyboard sweat and blogger.com tears!?
That is where the Creative Commons comes in, and makes this the first (and easier) post I am going to do on copyright in Blogging and especially in blogging in Korea.
I say easier because it takes the high ground and assumes that if you are blogging in and about Korea you want to share your stuff and be as un-restrictive as possible. That may not be the case for some of you. Indeed you might be one of those luckier bloggers who actually make money from Google adsense, or at least have traffic flowing only to your site for your stuff.
I want to let you know that I think that's cool to.
I'll just be over here in the corner with my cheque from Google for $2.09 worth of adsense earnings....
The cleaver people at Creative Commons have come up with a number of ways you can license your work(s) while still giving you control and people using your stuff flexibility
Basically, under Creative Commons Licensing there are four conditions you can impose on the reproduction of your work:
Attribution (by)
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.
Share Alike (sa)
You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.
Non-Commercial (nc)
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for non-commercial purposes only.
and
No Derivative Works (nd)
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
based on License Conditions by Creative Commons
and then you can mix and match according to your needs.
OK? I hear you ponder, but what does that all mean?
Well lets look at the very organ you're reading. This post was originally published sometime late on Friday night of 21 April 2010 at www.stafford.net.nz under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike Non-Commercial license. You may not be reading it at stafford.net.nz because the license I have chosen to employ allows anyone to take my work - even without asking and publish it elsewhere SO LONG AS they clearly state it is by me (and that usually means at least a link back to the original, if not actually naming me as the author as well). In turn whom ever has republished my work must make it freely available to other people as well, and in no case can anyone (except me) make any money off it.
(Fat chance of that...!)
People can even make what are called derivative works from the original work, that is to say, they can change it up, remix it or even translate it - so long as the above criteria are met. If you create a work and want it shared but think that it should always remain in it's original shape you would add the "No derivative works" option to your license.
OK? I hear you ponder. It sounds like you have a degree in Intellectual Property and you have to be a genius to understand all of this then.
Fear not dear reader, I happily flunked out of Law School a long time ago, and despite my own pretensions I am far from being a genius. The people at Creative Commons on the other hand might be pretty close to bone fide geniuses as they have put together all of this information in various easy to access places to make it really easy to license your work they way you want to.
A full explanation of the Creative Commons or CC licenses can be found here a long with the actual legal language as well. You might find this page more informative though(oooh look! Pictures!) as it gives a pretty straight forward explanation of the rights and responsibilities of people creating works under CC licenses and of those seeking to reuse those works.
In Part II I'll look at copyright versus copy-what-am-I-doing-wrong
[Image credit: laihiu used under a Creative Commons license]
Reader Comments (2)
it's good to see this information in your post, i was looking the same but there was not any proper resource, thanx now i have the link which i was looking for my research.
UK Dissertation Writing
I like the copyright legislation coming from India:
"breaking DRM [is] only illegal ... if you're also violating copyright. That means that you can break the DRM on your iPad to move your books to your Kindle or vice-versa. "
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/04/22/indias-copyright-bil.html
This particular example is what I want before I enter -ebook reader territory- the right to own my books and read them as I see fit. I might lend a friend my book but have no problem with prosecuting people giving away many free copies or the like.
Anyway, good article on Creative Commons.