RE: Question re: Lessig and the Creative Commons project

["De Beer Jennifer <jad@sun.ac.za>" <jad@sun.ac.za>]

Rick,

The web site is www.creativecommons.org. What the project seems to want to
facilitate is adding nuance to copyright agreements, which at present seem
to still (in the majority of cases) be at binary poles viz. the author
retains copyright vs. copyright is transferred to the publisher. In short
it still seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Granted one (as
author) should be able to negotiate one's position, but there seems to be
a lack of proactiveness in these quarters. If anything the creativecommons
project will raise (additional) awareness and maybe extend the preaching
to beyond the choir.

Kind regards,

Jennifer De Beer

---
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rick Anderson [mailto:rickand@unr.edu]
> Sent: Friday, September 27, 2002 12:51 AM
> To: Liblicense-L@Lists. Yale. Edu
> Subject: Question re: Lessig and the Creative Commons project
> 
> 
> I have a question for the Collective Wisdom regarding a brief 
> news item I
> just saw in the LJ Academic News Wire.  Referring to Lawrence Lessig's
> Creative Commons project, the story said this:
> 
> "The Creative Commons, formed by a coalition of academics, is 
> currently
> developing tools to make some or all creators' works available to the
> public for free. The non-profit organization says it aims to 
> 'lower the
> legal barriers to creativity' by allowing creators to 
> immediately share
> aspects of their copyrighted works with the public."
> 
> I'm sure I'm missing something fundamental here, but it's not 
> clear to me
> what problem this project is supposed to solve.  We already have an
> excellent "tool to make... creators' works available to the public for
> free" -- the Internet.  Assuming that the creator holds the copyright,
> there are no legal barriers whatsoever between the creator 
> and the public.  
> If I want to write a novel and distribute it freely to the 
> world, I'm at
> complete liberty to do so (as long as I haven't sold the copyright to
> someone else).
> 
> What am I missing or misunderstanding?  Does the Creative 
> Commons have a
> website somewhere that might offer additional info?
> 
> -------------
> Rick Anderson
> rickand@unr.edu