Thursday, May 25, 2006

"Common Sense" Copyright Licensing

We spend a lot of time in our Laptop Prep classes talking about copyright, copyright law, and fair use.

In these days of great amounts of information -- with so much available at the click of a mouse -- the issues involved in complying with copyright, in spirit and by the letter of the law, is daunting.

The Ceative Commons movement seems to be gaining more prominence as more of a "common sense" response to the challenges to copyright.

Creative Commons is a way to license creative works so that they can be more widely shared while maintaining some protections for authors/creators.

To quote their opening paragraph:
Creative Commons licenses provide a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors, artists, and educators. We have built upon the "all rights reserved" concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach. We're a nonprofit organization. All of our tools are free.
This is a subject worth exploration in much greater depth. I hope to cover it next year in the unit on copyright.