After the BBB premiere and the little conversation with Jon Phillips about Creative Commons I decided to change the topic of my presentation at the design marketing seminar [1] to Creative Commons.
The main intention of this presentation was to show why a licensing model like CC is relevant for marketing and even commercial business. Of course the idea of common property was an important part too.
What is Creative Commons?
It is a flexible licensing model which extends or to say more accurate restricts the copyright under certain custom conditions. This way the author can control the spreading and use of his works. The main idea is to be able to give the commonality access to your works while still preserving certain rights. Creative Commons (some rights reserved) is therefore to be seen a license between copyright (all rights reserved) and public domain (no rights reserved).
Why is Creative Commons?
Because it is necessary to have a flexible license model in the digital world. Accept the fact that every unauthorized copy and usage of a photo on the web is a violation in copyright of the author. But authors had no easy way to allow usage without giving away all rights. Now they have!
How is Creative Commons?
You have different factors like attribution, commercial usage, editing of your work and how the edited version has to be licensed. You define what rights the commonalty receives. This give certain combination like e.g. you can use and change the work as long as you name the original author, don’t use it commercially and publish the edit under same restrictions (BY-NC-SA). It is really easy to setup a license. Just browse to the Creative Commons site [2] and click on “License your work". One click later you get the license and instructions how to include it.
Why should I use Creative Commons?
Because CC is a motivation to use, share and therefore spread your work.
Because you can decide about the license and faith of your work.
Because you can allow editing and progress of your work.
Because you extend a big pool of material which you of course can have access to as well.
Because you still can make separate commercial contracts in combination with noncommercial license tag (see CC+ [3]).
Because you assist the commonality and you can wear cool Creative Commons T-shirts while doing so.
Big Bucks, no Bunny?
Not necessary. You don’t have to give away for nothing. So from the marketing point of view you can use Creative Commons as a marketing instrument. You can e.g. license a trailer or certain qualities of your video with Creative Commons so they will be spread while still demanding money for the high quality / complete version. Or you give away your work and make money from service and support (Red Hat anyone?). Or you just give it away for noncommercial usage and still make big buck from contracts with commercial institutions like TV Stations etc. Or give it away and hope for donations. Don’t underestimate the past called open source scene. There are lots of possibilities. I repeat. NOW THERE ARE POSSIBILITIES. Your creative mind makes the rules. Think about it and don’t forget to inform yourself at [2].
You can have a look at my presentation, too. It is, as a matter of course, licensed under creative commons. You can grab it at my new output section. It is written in German though.
