Creative Commons: Design & Culture

Editor's Notes

1. Hi everyone. So thanks for having me and Opodz and Megan for organizing tonight. I’ve been told that there are a lot of designers and related types of creators attending tonight, so I’d love to hear from all of you what kind of work you do. Maybe just a few of you would like to tell me what you do and why you’re here? Ok, great! So we have some __ and __ in the house. If you’re not a designer that’s ok too, since I’m going to be covering Creative Commons generally so it should be useful to anyone who works with creative content or media.
2. As you all know my name is Jane Park and I work for Creative Commons the organization. I’ve been working for Creative Commons for a little over 6 and a half years now, a really long time, so I am definitely one of the people you want to talk to you if you have questions about the licenses or anything else we do. There’s my Twitter handle where I usually tweet about CC things. And there’s my email in case you have questions later on or want to get in touch with me about a project.
3. So I’m going to cover four things today. I know this workshop was advertised as a crash course in Creative Commons, so I’ll speak a little bit about Creative Commons origins in copyright and why it was founded Then I’ll go over our licenses and how they work I’ll give some general examples, but I’m going to focus on case studies of CC use in Design, b/c I think that’s a growing field where creators are really opening up and sharing their work, esp in areas like hardware and 3D printing And lastly I’ll demo how you can search for CC-licensed media to use in your own work, how to license your own work and how to share it back out with the public, esp other designers and prospective employers.
4. So first question – who are we? For those of you who don’t know, we’re an actual organizational entity. We’re a nonprofit and we’re global with staff distributed across the United States and affiliates all around the world.
5. Our reach is global because we work with legal experts in 75 countries to make sure that our licenses and tools are aligned to national and international copyright laws. Because of this, we are the standard for open content licensing pretty much everywhere. Go to website: - read mission, etc.
6. … But if I had to sum up in one sentence what we do as an organization, I would say that we work to make sharing content easy, legal, and scalable.
7. We work to do this because while sharing today may be technically easy, with the Internet and mobile phones, it legally difficult. How many of you have ever had one of your works flagged for removal on a platform, like a DMCA takedown notice on YouTube or Tumblr? So you know what I’m talking about. Well it has happened to a lot of folks, I know people who have uploaded their own songs to SoundCloud only to have it removed due to a copyright notice which they then had to contest to get it back up. They weren’t in violation of copyright, but for platforms it’s better for them to be safe than sorry so they just take it down and assume the uploader is in the wrong until proven otherwise.
8. So because of all these highly publicized cases with the RIAA and MPAA suing average citizens, we all know something about copyright law. If you don’t know much, that means you’re in the same boat as a lot of people who don’t really understand how it works. It’s complicated. In a nutshell copyright essentially governs how you can share copies of content both on and offline.
9. In the United States it is “a set of exclusive rights granted to creators of “original works of authorship.” These rights govern what you can do with the copies of creative works.
10. This means that whenever you want to copy, publicly perform, display, build upon or distribute works – you have to obtain the express permission of the owner of that work.
11. And not everyone knows this, but copyright is automatic -- in the U.S.it is granted at the instant of creation. It reserves all the rights previously mentioned, And it lasts a very long time. In the US, that means It lasts life of the author plus 70 years. It lasts 120 years for corporate works. And the terms just keep getting extended. It didn’t used to be this way; copyright started out as a limited right that creators had to apply for and renew every 14 years. Starting in 1976, copyright became automatic and much more restrictive. (14 year limited term) Every time works are about to fall into the public domain, new laws are passed.
12. The problem is that © was designed for old distribution models well before the internet, and the laws around it just keep getting more and more restrictive, While technology advances at this fast and furious pace. The law simply cannot keep up, and it is actually going against the technological tide.
13. Today more than ever before we can share copies of materials, whether they are songs, videos, designs, iphone photos or tweets, with the click of a button. But the law, which was designed before this was possible, says most of this is illegal unless you ask for express permission each and every time. But really, when was the last time you asked for permission to reblog something, or post a picture you took from someone’s instagram?
14. The reality is that in today’s digital world, we are all creators – whether we know it or not. Even kids – or esp kids..
15. And that’s a problem if it’s so easy to share, and the repercussions for that sharing are costly. Copyright infringement can cause the infringer anywhere from $750 to 150,000 dollars per infringement, which is crazy!
16. So that’s whyCreative Commons was founded in 2001 – to address this growing friction in the system. Creative Commons proposed to make it simpler for creators to share by developing a preset suite of copyright licenses that anyone could use to grant copyright permissions to their works. This way, individual creators could have more options in how they shared their work without having to hire a lawyer. This is called a some rights reserved approach to copyright that is more flexible and can be managed by the creator directly.
17. With Creative Commons you grant some copyright permissions in advance – the uses that you don’t mind people making of your work for whatever reason – while maintaining your copyright ownership over your work.
18. You can grant permissions by attaching a free copyright license to your work.
19. These free copyright licenses are known as Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons licenses exist in the middle ground between the public domain and all rights reserved copyright because you are only giving away some of your rights while keeping copyright. All CC licenses are made up of the four conditions shown here. From left to right are the symbols for…
20. So the first condition is the Attribution condition which is pretty self explanatory, it means you have to give attribution, or credit, to the author of the work. All of the CC licenses have this condition. You can think of Attribution as the base condition, on top of which a creator might choose to apply one or more of the additional three conditions. For example: - If you want to prohibit commercial uses, you would add the non-commercial condition - If you want to require that people who adapt or remix your work also share their derivative freely, then you would add the sharealike condition - If you want your work to be redistributed “as-is” (or verbatim without any significant changes being made), then you would add the no derivative works condition Any questions about the different conditions?
21. Okay so -- Six possible combinations of these conditions exist, which means that there are six Creative Commons licenses. In addition to our licenses, we also have a public domain dedication tool called CC0. CC0 is not a license, it is more a way for you to waive all copyright to your work if that’s what you want, effectively entering your work into the public domain. Most creators won’t choose to do this for creative work, but many will choose to do this for data – stuff that doesn’t really have a creative element and that doesn’t make sense to claim copyright over. For example, geographic location data that people can extract into 3D models or turn into infographics.
22. The Creative Commons licenses are designed with the web in mind. The licenses have a unique 3 layer design as you can see here, which is also a fancy way of saying that you can communicate the license in three different ways: one way for lawyers, one way for normal creators and users, and one way for machines. This unique three layer design is part of what makes CC the global standard for copyright licensing.
23. So the first layer is the actual license, the document that lawyers have drafted and vetted so that the license works like it’s supposed to according to US and international copyright laws. This is called the lawyer readable legal code because it is written by and for lawyers.
24. * But since most of us are not lawyers, we also make the licenses available in a format that normal people can read and understand. * We call this the “human readable” summary of the license, which sums up the most important terms and conditions of the license into non-technical language. * This is the second layer of the license – and you can think of it as the user-friendly interface to the actual license.
25. The third and final layer of the license design is the machine-readable metadata. This is what really makes the CC license appropriate for the Internet age. This small snippet of HTML code summarizes the CC license and associated information (such as who the work is authored by) into a format that software, search engines like Google, and other kinds of technology can understand. You don’t have to worry about coming up with this code by yourself, because we have a tool that gives it to you. All you have to do is copy and paste into your webpage. And I’ll be showing you how to use that later.
26. As I mentioned earlier, our licenses are written and vetted by legal experts in over 75 countries, and we keep growing. Recently we started affiliate teams in India, Mongolia, and Bangladesh.
27. We estimate that there are at least 500 million works under CC licenses out there today. This is actually a very conservative estimate…
28. Because as you can see from this graph, since 2003 the number of CC licensed works has been growing exponentially
29. So I’ve given you a lot of information already, so I want to stop here to repeat three things you should definitely remember about how CC licenses work. 1 – is that CC is built on copyright law. CC works within the current system to offer creators a some rights reserved option to the all rights reserved default. Without copyright law, CC could not exist. 2 – CC is not offering an alternative to copyright, it is simply giving creators more options. CC licensing something does not mean you are giving up copyright. On the contrary, you are maintaining your copyright, just under more flexible terms. You’re telling people that this is my work, and here’s what you can and can’t do with it. 3 – Lastly, CC makes it clearer to your users what they can do with your copyrighted work, which minimizes transaction costs on your end. You won’t have to work out a different contract with every single person who wants to use your work, or vice versa. If you want to use something on the web, you can check for the CC license and use it according to the license, without having to ask permission every single time.
30. So who are some of the people and organizations that use CC? Can anyone here name a creator or company that uses CC?
31. So Wikipedia uses CC. You might not know that everything on Wikipedia is under a CC license, specifically the CC BY-SA license, which allows you to do anything with Wikipedia content, including translate it, edit, redistribute it, and even sell it, as long as you give credit and share alike. Which means, any derivative works you make like translations have to be shared back freely with the community.
32. Flickr is a major adopter of CC licenses. Anyone can go on Flickr and license their photos under CC and also find images to use under CC for free. Flickr is the largest single source of CC licensed media with over 200 million photos under the various CC licenses.
33. Many music sharing communities and platforms also enable CC license options for creators. So SoundCloud is a big one, you can upload your song or album under CC. Same goes for the Free music archive and bandcamp.
34. And there’s a lot more media out there under CC licenses, from videos to textbooks to scientific research. Virtually anything that is copyrightable is CC licensable. And all of the media from these different fields can be remixed with each other thanks to the CC licenses on them. ---- Video: We just recently announced four million CC-licensed videos on Youtube In Open Access repositories that we track, 23+ million articles That doesn’t include all repositories, or every OA journal. The bottom line: each of these fields values from CC licensing, but there’s a greater value in their ability to share with and borrow from each other. Interoperability: Compatible metadata standards, so users can find and sort data across different fields.
35. So that’s how CC licenses work. Before I go into case studies on CC use in design, does anyone have any questions?
36. Creative network – sharing portfolios Behance is a platform and community for designers and other creative to showcase & discover creative work. Behance is a major hub for designers to be seen; its testimonials page has dozens of stories, both of designers who got work by sharing their portfolios on Behance and of big-name companies who used it to find talent. Most interestingly, Creative Commons licensing is the default on Behance. When you select “All Rights Reserved” for a project, you’re warned that “This will limit your exposure.” Scott Belsky Over 75% of content published on Behance is CC-licensed. Those that choose otherwise are often doing so at their client’s request or for some other contractual concern. The primary driver of CC licensing is a desire to share broadly with reasonable restrictions. Over a million creative professionals from around the world. CC has been a primary ingredient in the growth and values of Behance Sharing is the new “networking.” - the creative community builds professional networks by sharing their creations, feedback, and resources. power is shifting away from agencies and middlemen to the creatives themselves
37. It’s an exciting trend, but it depends on a continued culture of transparency and sharing. Show website…
38. Graphic icon design The Noun Project is a huge archive of downloadable icons — simple, concise drawings representing everything from toothbrushes to Scotland. The icons are available in vector formats, meaning that it’s easy to adapt, resize, or color them without sacrificing image quality every image is free to use. Sofya Polyakov “We knew that we needed a license that would be applicable worldwide, and that we had to maximize usability of the icons themselves” “It’s so easy for somebody to go to a website and rip off its designs. We can’t compete with that. We had to make The Noun Project as easy as possible, or no one would use it. “ “They donate high-quality work because when that work gets used, it means free marketing and advertising for them” The Noun Project is growing into a community of designers setting their sights on big, real-world problems. Through Iconathon events, Noun Project designers are applying their design skills in areas like investigative journalism and healthcare reform “Iconathons are about more than making nice-looking icons, Sofya explains. They’re about making big issues easier to understand.” How do you explain the new healthcare laws to someone who doesn’t know English, or can’t read?
39. Design software – training materials/documentation industry leader in design software chose to open its documentation and training content to its community Media & Entertainment (M&E) support and learning content for its 2014 product line - 20,000 pages of documentation, 70 videos, and 140 downloadable 3D asset files under CC BY-NC-SA and CC BY-NC-ND licenses. Division produces the 3-D computer graphics software Autodesk Maya and 3ds Max, among others. These tools are used to create visual effects and animation for movies, TV shows and video games, notably including the "Iron Man" series, "Life of Pi," "Man of Steel" and "Game of Thrones." a direct response to demands from the community of users of Autodesk products. Multimedia instructor from Canada wanted to be able translate the audio into French and publish the videos on the college’s website. Autodesk started licensing its content under CC so that community members like Duguay could use the material to its full potential. allows Autodesk to tap into the wisdom - and labor - of the crowd, making their materials more effective and useful. The more people who learn their software, the more paying customers they wind up with over the long term.
40. 3D modeling and printing design community for discovering, making, and sharing 3D printable things +100k 3D models Thingiverse is an “object sharing” site that enables anyone to upload the schematics, designs, and images for their projects. Users can then download and reuse the work in their projects using their own laser cutters, 3D printers, and analog tools. Think of it as a Flickr for the Maker set. Thingiverse – a social site run by Makerbot – provides a basic framework for tracking derivative work from project to project.
41. CARS - commercial crowd-sourcing – Car design Fiat Put out a call for design ideas. All ideas submitted were published under CC BY, the most open CC license. They can be used by anyone, even Fiat’s competitors. Resulting concept car, Fiat Mio. This car wasn’t produced commercially, but elements from it were used in later releases Quote: "You may have an R&D department, but there are an awful lot of people that think about this differently or are better qualified. Tapping them as resources means that your company can come with up better ideas—and have more insight into how to exploit those ideas, test their viability, and put them into production." -Carl Esposti http://www.inc.com/guides/201109/how-to-crowdsource-your-resarch-and-development.html
42. Open hardware global open hardware project that aims to “allow anyone to design, download and ‘print’ ComputerNumericalControlled-milled houses and components, which can be assembled with minimal formal skill or training.” WikiHouse Designs produced and shared by a community, under a CC license. Parts can be manufactured on a CNC machine, and assembled by a team of two or more people. Growing movement, prototype houses being built around the world. New model for urban development around the world. The system we’ve got at the moment can be put together without power tools, by unskilled people in a very short length of time.
43. New Zealand – Canterbury/christchurch earthquake – NZ Wikihouse lab formed by two people We were looking for a system whereby, in the worst case scenario, within a few weeks you could relocate your business and be back up in running “One particular thing we were looking for was a system that allowed people to be involved right from the get-go, through the whole design process, right the way to implementation. One of the really nice things about WikiHouse is that the people can really assemble the things on the ground themselves, as well being involved in the whole design process along the way. One of the main things we looking at was empowerment.”
44. Martin and Danny, Wikihouse NZ
45. I encourage you to check out The Power of Open book, which feature
46. So there’s a lot of stories out there of CC changing the landscape of whatever field. I could go on, but I won’t. Instead I’ll move on to tell you about how you can discover CC licensed works and license and share your own works.
47. So how can you find CC licensed stuff? Well one way is through our search tool – which is not a.. This is possible because of the machine-readable layer of the license that I showed you earlier.
48. So let’s say you find CC licensed stuff and want to use it – how do you give credit? It’s up to you where you want to give attribution, but wherever you include it, we recommend including the following pieces of information. So we have a detailed best practices for attribution guide with examples by medium. But if you need a quick acronym to reference, we recommend using “TASL”– which stands for Title Author Source License. TASL is even used with elementary aged children because it’s so easy to remember. Title and Author are self-explanatory. Source means link to the original work where you accessed it on the web; and License means the name of and link to the license, for example CC BY or Creative Commons Attribution, and a link to the license as specified in your SGA. The link is very important because that’s how people who don’t know what Creative Commons is know what they can and can’t do with a work.