A short introduction to Creative Commons and its history.

1. What is
Creative
Commons?
Mandi Goodsett
Summer 2018
This work is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License.

2. You may have heard
of the Creative
Commons before,
but what is it?

3. Is it an organization?

4. A set of licenses?

5. A movement?

6. Why does it exist,
and what does the
Creative Commons
do today?

7. To understand where
Creative Commons
comes from, we have
to go back to the
beginning of the
Internet, and how it
interacts with
copyright.

8. Copyright is very important
for protecting intellectual
property.

9. But the Internet allows and
encourages sharing (legal or
otherwise), rather than
controlling creative works.

10. What the Internet allows,
copyright inhibits.

11. Copyright is a
limited monopoly.

12. It’s a balance between
protection of creative
works so that artists
find it worthwhile to
create, and the
sharing of those
creative works for the
benefit of everyone.
Copyright is a
limited monopoly.

13. Unfortunately, the
“limited” nature of
copyright has become
increasingly reduced
as the length of the
copyright term is
extended.
Copyright is a
limited monopoly.

14. In 1998, Congress passed the
Copyright Term Extension Act,
often called the Sonny Bono Act,
which lengthened the copyright
term to life of the author plus 70
years (from life of the author plus
50 years).

15. A man named Eric
Eldred, who had been
sharing works that had
fallen into the public
domain due to their
copyright term ending,
paired up with Lawrence
Lessig and others to
argue that this law was
unconstitutional.

16. In the case of Eldred v.
Ashcroft

17. In the case of Eldred v.
Ashcroft
Lessig argued that extending the copyright term for
works that had already been created could not be
encouraging creative making ...

18. In the case of Eldred v.
Ashcroft
… and that the extension of copyright without good
cause by Congress was a breach of freedom of speech.

19. In the case of Eldred v.
Ashcroft
They lost the case.

20. The tension
between copyright
and the freedom of
the Internet has
been problematic in
many realms.

21. While trying to impede
the continual
extension of copyright
terms had not
succeeded, there was
another way forward.

22. Lawrence Lessig and others
developed the Creative
Commons to resolve some
of the tension and allow for
the shared creativity of the
online commons to flourish.

23. What is the Creative
Commons today?

24. The Creative Commons
is ...
an organization

25. The Creative Commons
is ...
a set of licenses

26. The Creative Commons
is ...
a global network of people who value
openness

27. The Creative
Commons
Organization
is a non-profit with employees
stationed around the world. The
organization is a steward of the
Creative Commons licenses and
supporter of the open movement.

28. The Creative
Commons
Licenses
are a set of public licenses that
allow creators to retain their
copyright while releasing some of
those rights to everyone.

29. The Creative
Commons
Licenses
There are now 1.4 billion Creative
Commons-licensed works in
existence worldwide.

30. The Creative
Commons
Licenses
The Creative Commons is interested
in both encouraging many creators
to add their work to the Commons,
and in developing a culture of
sharing and connecting that
improves overall creative output.

31. The Creative
Commons
Global Network
provides support for the licenses,
which are important for educators
and institutions around the world,
and which signal a set of values in
addition to providing access.

32. The Creative
Commons
Global Network
reinforces the Open Movement,
composed of activists, policy
makers, and creators worldwide.

33. The Creative
Commons
Global Network
looks to the future for the
licenses in the context of new
technology and innovations.

34. To learn more about Creative
Commons and to join the
movement, visit their website:
https://creativecommons.org/

35. References (in order of appearance)
● “Creative Commons Certificate Course content” by Creative Commons is
licensed under a CC-BY 4.0 license.
● “Globe” by The Tango Desktop Project is licensed under a CC-0 license.
● “U.S. Copyright Office Seal” of the United States Copyright Office is in the
Public Domain.
● “Eric Eldred” by Joi Ito and Padraic is licensed under a CC-BY 2.0 license.
● “Creative Commons” by Hamedm is in the Public Domain.
● “Creative Commons Staff” by David Kindler is licensed under a CC-BY 2.0
license.
● “Open Content A Practical Guide to Using Creative Commons Licences” by
Markus Büsges is licensed under a CC-BY SA 4.0 license.

36. References
● “Mosaic - my Flickr photostream” by Tatters is licensed under a CC-BY 2.0
license.
● “Brigham Young University faculty survey …” by opensource.com is licensed
under a CC-BY SA 2.0 license.
● “Share” by Mike Cohen is licensed under a CC-BY 2.0 license.
● “Jason Priem and Heather Piwowar present ImpactStory to Open Access
advocate Mike Rossner” by Open Science Federation is licensed under a CC-BY
2.0 license.
● “Keyboard” by Jeroen Bennink is licensed under a CC-BY 2.0 license.