Law Commons^™

Reuse, Remix, And Create With Creative Commons Licenses, Andrée Rathemacher

Technical Services Faculty Presentations

Slides from a presentation, "Reuse, Remix, and Create with Creative Commons Licenses," presented at the Rhode Island Library Association Annual Conference 2019, Get Informed!, on May 23, 2019 in North Smithfield, Rhode Island.

An openly-shared Google Slides version of this presentation is also available at https://bit.ly/2w6maqH.

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REUSE, REMIX, AND CREATE WITH CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSES | ROOM 2A

What are Creative Commons (CC) licenses and how do they work? What is the difference between something that is free online and something that is truly “open”? Did you know that it is often a Creative Commons license that puts …

Care For A Sample? De Minimis, Fair Use, Blockchain, And An Approach To An Affordable Music Sampling System For Independent Artists, Sean M. Corrado

Fordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal

Thanks, in part, to social media and the digital streaming age of music, independent artists have seen a rise in popularity and many musicians have achieved mainstream success without the affiliation of a major record label. Alongside the growth of independent music has come the widespread use of music sampling. Sampling, which was once depicted as a crime perpetrated by hip-hop artists, is now prevalent across charttopping hits from all genres. Artists have used sampling as a tool to integrate cultures, eras, and styles of music while experimenting with the bounds of musical creativity. Artists whose works are sampled have …

Creative Commons: An Explainer, Kincaid C. Brown

Law Librarian Scholarship

Copyright protection attaches automatically to original works you create, whether a poem, photograph, painting, song, video, or essay. Copyright limits what others can do with your creative work and protects your original work from, for example, being compiled or reused and sold for profit. If you hold the copyright—and didn’t, say, create the original work in an employment context where it may be subject to being a work for hire—you may want to allow others to use your work for particular purposes. You could individually negotiate a license granting rights to each person, which would undoubtedly take more and more …

Owning The Right To Open Up Access To Scientific Publications, Lucie Guibault

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Whether the researchers themselves, rather than the institution they work for, are at all in a position to implement OA principles actually depends on the initial allocation of rights on their works. Whereas most European Union Member States have legislation that provides that the copyright owner is the natural person who created the work, the copyright laws of a number European countries, including those of the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, establish a presumption, according to which the copyright of works made in the course of employment belongs initially to the employer, which in this case would be the university. …

Creative Commons: An Explainer, Kincaid C. Brown

Law Librarian Scholarship

Copyright protection attaches automatically to original works you create, whether a poem, photograph, painting, song, video, or essay. Copyright limits what others can do with your creative work and protects your original work from, for example, being compiled or reused and sold for profit. If you hold the copyright—and didn’t, say, create the original work in an employment context where it may be subject to being a work for hire—you may want to allow others to use your work for particular purposes. You could individually negotiate a license granting rights to each person, which would undoubtedly take more and more …

Finding And Using Images, While Respecting Copyright, Roger V. Skalbeck

Law Faculty Publications

Text plays a central role in nearly every lawyer’s life. From cases to codes to contracts, words matter tremendously. At times, words alone are insufficient. A well-selected image can evoke emotion and attract attention. While there are literally millions of images online available for use without cost, a well sourced and properly referenced image should recognize and respect the creator’s intellectual property rights. Here are tips for finding and using images, while respecting copyright.

Open Access Interview With Michael W. Carroll, Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

Academic Authors And Copyright, Laura Quilter

Laura Quilter

No abstract provided.

A Case For The Public Domain, Clark Asay

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past several decades open license movements have proven highly successful in the software and content worlds. Such movements rely in part on the belief that greater freedom of use triggers innovative activity that is superior to what a restrictive IP approach produces. Ironically, such open license movements also rely on IP rights to promote their vision of freedom and openness. They do so through IP licenses that, while granting significant freedoms, also impose certain conditions on users such as the “copyleft” requirement in the software world. Such movements rely on this IP-based approach due to fears that, without …

A Case For The Public Domain, Clark Asay

Clark Asay

Over the past several decades open license movements have proven highly successful in the software and content worlds. Such movements rely in part on the belief that greater freedom of use triggers innovative activity that is superior to what a restrictive IP approach produces. Ironically, such open license movements also rely on IP rights to promote their vision of freedom and openness. They do so through IP licenses that, while granting significant freedoms, also impose certain conditions on users such as the “copyleft” requirement in the software world. Such movements rely on this IP-based approach due to fears that, without …

Safe To Be Open: Study On The Protection Of Research Data And Recommendations For Access And Usage, Lucie Guibault, Andreas Wiebe

Books

Openness has become a common concept in a growing number of scientific and academic fields. Expressions such as Open Access (OA) or Open Content (OC) are often employed for publications of papers and research results, or are contained as conditions in tenders issued by a number of funding agencies. More recently the concept of Open Data (OD) is of growing interest in some fields, particularly those that produce large amounts of data – which are not usually protected by standard legal tools such as copyright. However, a thorough understanding of the meaning of Openness – especially its legal implications – …

A Case For The Public Domain, Clark D. Asay

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past several decades open license movements have proven highly successful in the software and content worlds. Such movements rely in part on the belief that greater freedom of use triggers innovative activity that is superior to what a restrictive IP approach produces. Ironically, such open license movements also rely on IP rights to promote their vision of freedom and openness. They do so through IP licenses that, while granting significant freedoms, also impose certain conditions on users such as the “copyleft” requirement in the software world. Such movements rely on this IP-based approach due to fears that, without …

Workshop On Research And Resource Commons In Scientific Research: Final Report, Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

In November of 2011, the Washington College of Law at American University convened and hosted a two-day workshop in collaboration with the Creative Commons to develop a strategy for promoting a commons or scientific research and related resources. The workshop brought together interested stakeholders from across the scientific research enterprise: scientists, administrators, librarians, publishers, societies, technologists, lawyers, policy makers, students, funders, and Open Science advocates, including both U.S. and international representatives. This diverse group discussed the current state of policy and technology as it relates to a scientific research commons, and identified key opportunities and challenges, as well as next …

Workshop On Research And Resource Commons In Scientific Research: Final Report, Michael W. Carroll

Joint PIJIP/TLS Research Paper Series

In November of 2011, the Washington College of Law at American University convened and hosted a two-day workshop in collaboration with the Creative Commons to develop a strategy for promoting a commons or scientific research and related resources. The workshop brought together interested stakeholders from across the scientific research enterprise: scientists, administrators, librarians, publishers, societies, technologists, lawyers, policy makers, students, funders, and Open Science advocates, including both U.S. and international representatives. This diverse group discussed the current state of policy and technology as it relates to a scientific research commons, and identified key opportunities and challenges, as well as next …

Edible Plagiarism: Reconsidering Recipe Copyright In The Digital Age, Meredith G. Lawrence

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Sharing recipes through food blogs is an increasingly popular activity. Bloggers publish their own recipes, claiming copyright protection, but they also publish others' recipes. Food publishers who distribute recipes online may be harmed when bloggers include the entire text of the food publisher's recipe on a blog without the publisher's knowledge or permission. The blogger's inclusion of an entire recipe often reduces site traffic to the food publisher's website, thereby damaging advertising revenues. Copyright law, as courts interpret it today, does not provide these publishers with recourse against bloggers who publish their recipes without permission.

This Note analyzes the various …

Shrinking The Commons: Termination Of Copyright Licenses And Transfers For The Benefit Of The Public, Timothy K. Armstrong

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

Federal law limits the free alienability of copyright rights to prevent powerful transferees from forcing authors into unremunerative bargains. The limiting mechanism is a statutory provision that permits authors or their heirs, at their sole election, to terminate any transfer or license of any copyright interest during a defined period. Indeed, the applicable provisions of the Copyright Act go so far as to invalidate purported waivers by authors of their statutory termination powers.

These statutory provisions may constitute an impediment to the effective grant of rights for the benefit of the public under widely used "open content" licensing arrangements, such …

Wikipedia, Collective Authorship, And The Politics Of Knowledge, Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

This chapter considers the legal ramifications of Wikipedia, and other online media, such as the Encyclopedia of Life. Nathaniel Tkacz (2007) has observed: 'Wikipedia is an ideal entry-point from which to approach the shifting character of knowledge in contemporary society.' He observes: 'Scholarship on Wikipedia from computer science, history, philosophy, pedagogy and media studies has moved beyond speculation regarding its considerable potential, to the task of interpreting - and potentially intervening in - the significance of Wikipedia's impact' (Tkacz 2007). After an introduction, Part II considers the evolution and development of Wikipedia, and the legal troubles that have attended it. …

Creative Commons Licensing And Non-Creative Geographic Data, Harlan Onsrud

Harlan J Onsrud

Why does the scientific community need a simple method for letting each of us know that we are allowed legally to build on the work and data products of each other without asking permission? Does merely following the traditional practices of science and giving credit now make me a lawbreaker? What's the problem, how did we get here and what's the solution? Why does the solution for creative works not apply to geographic and other utilitarian data and databases? This presentation addresses these questions and approaches for arriving at solutions.

Codifying A Commons: Copyright, Copyleft, And The Creative Commons Project, Adrienne K. Goss

Chicago-Kent Law Review

In response to problems of overprotection perceived in America's copyright scheme, the founders of the Creative Commons project have sought to create modular licenses allowing authors and artists to declaim some of the default protections associated with their copyright in order to grant public permission for use of their work in contexts such as nonprofit media or derivative works. This article reviews criticisms of the Creative Commons project and analyzes the project from the standpoint of copyright's overall policy goals, both domestically and internationally. Because copyright policy seeks to enhance the public supply of information and knowledge, the article concludes …

Creative Commons As Conversational Copyright, Michael Carroll

PIJIP Faculty Scholarship

Copyright law's default settings inhibit sharing and adaptation of creative works even though new digital technologies greatly enhance individuals' capacity to engage in creative conversation. Creative Commons licenses enable a form of conversational copyright through which creators share their works, primarily over the Internet, while asserting some limitation on user's right with respect to works in the licensed commons. More specifically, this chapter explains the problems in copyright law to which Creative Commons licenses respond, the methods chosen, and why the machine-readable and public aspects of the licenses are specific examples of a more general phenomenon in digital copyright law …

Creative Commons As Conversational Copyright, Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

Copyright law's default settings inhibit sharing and adaptation of creative works even though new digital technologies greatly enhance individuals' capacity to engage in creative conversation. Creative Commons licenses enable a form of conversational copyright through which creators share their works, primarily over the Internet, while asserting some limitation on user's right with respect to works in the licensed commons. More specifically, this chapter explains the problems in copyright law to which Creative Commons licenses respond, the methods chosen, and why the machine-readable and public aspects of the licenses are specific examples of a more general phenomenon in digital copyright law …

Creative Commons And The New Intermediaries, Michael W. Carroll

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

This symposium contribution examines the disintermediating and reintermediating roles played by Creative Commons licenses on the Internet. Creative Commons licenses act as a disintermediating force because they enable end-to-end transactions in copyrighted works. The licenses have reintermediating force by enabling new services and new online communities to form around content licensed under a Creative Commons license. Intermediaries focused on the copyright dimension have begun to appear online as search engines, archives, libraries, publishers, community organizers, and educators. Moreover, the growth of machine-readable copyright licenses and the new intermediaries that they enable is part of a larger movement toward a Semantic …

Creative Commons And The New Intermediaries, Michael W. Carroll

Michael W. Carroll

This symposium contribution examines the disintermediating and reintermediating roles played by Creative Commons licenses on the Internet. Creative Commons licenses act as a disintermediating force because they enable end-to-end transactions in copyrighted works. The licenses have reintermediating force by enabling new services and new online communities to form around content licensed under a Creative Commons license. Intermediaries focused on the copyright dimension have begun to appear online as search engines, archives, libraries, publishers, community organizers, and educators. Moreover, the growth of machine-readable copyright licenses and the new intermediaries that they enable is part of a larger movement toward a Semantic …

An Orphan Works Affirmative Defense To Copyright Infringement Actions, Jerry Brito, Bridget Dooling

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

Laurence Peter once said that "[o]riginality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it." Yet that clever quip is itself unoriginal. Although there may be nothing new under the sun--the arrangement of different bits of existing cultural matter in new and interesting combinations is the source of much originality. Yet today much of our cultural raw material is outside the reach of creators because of the orphan works problem. This problem renders untouchable a large swath of existing artistic, literary, and other works because if a work's copyright owner cannot be found to …