Apparently it's complicated

Coolmac

Date:
20/07/2005

The other day, one of my favourite organisations, creativecommons.org (yes, I do harp on about them), was criticised by that writer who shares his name with the equally popular Dvorak keyboard. You can read the article here.

For those that don't want to read the whole thing, let me summarise in point form.

  • Confused.
  • Threatens “fair use” copyright laws.
  • More confusion, then a bit more for good measure.
  • Asks known creative commons critic to say something nice about it, surprisingly he doesn't.
  • Complains about non-commercial aspects of it. 
  • More worries about fair use.
  • Creative Commons: Public domain, why not just normal public domain. 
  • Copyright gives me and my grandkids rights, why should I care about anything else?
  • Copyright lasts too long currently.
  • Insults Creative Commons name.
  • Copyright just needs you to put your name alongside the word “copyright”, and a date.

That's about it. I've tried to be fair here and include all parts of the article. Now I feel the need to go through these points, though you'll have to excuse me if I leave out the ones where he's confused.

Lets start with fair use. Fair use is the part of copyright law that recognises the use of copyrighted works by others for such things as critique, education, reporting etc. You can read more here.

Now if you look at the bottom of this page and click on the CC icon, you will load the “human readable summary” of the creative commons licence. On that page you can find a link to the actual legal code. The first section is definitions that will be used throughout the document; the second is about fair use. And I quote, “2. Fair Use Rights. Nothing in this licence is intended to reduce, limit, or restrict any rights arising from fair use, first sale or other limitations on the exclusive rights of the copyright owner under copyright law or other applicable laws.” It's the second section! He obviously didn't get past definitions before getting confused.

Asking a known critic of creative commons about the benefits of creative commons and getting the answer, “none”. How is that surprising? Who wouldn't expect that?

Then we have the points about the non-commercial aspect of it, and that copyright gives him all the rights he needs already. Sounds like the only thing you care about is the money. Some of us care a little less about it. In fact some of us are quite happy for our work to be given away free, but at the same time we don't want others profiting from it. And for those that don't care, well there are creative commons licences that allow others to profit off your work.

Insulting the name. Well, with debating skills like that, how could anyone win an argument against him...

Then we have him saying how to copyright your work, “Now you just use the word "copyright," add your name and a date, and publish it”. Well you can, if you want; but any country that is part of the Berne Convention requires nothing, I repeat nothing, for a work to be copyrighted by its creator. It is automatic, nothing has to be done other than creating the work in the first place.

He does manage to say one thing that we can agree on. Copyright, in its current form, lasts too long. There is no reason why an artist's relatives should be reaping the rewards of his work for 75 years after his death.

Anyway, for those of you that ever hear the nay sayers spouting this kind of shit, go and read the creative commons license yourself. It's likely they haven't.

"The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse'. There is no evidence that people want to use these things." - John C. Dvorak, San Francisco Examiner, 1984.

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