RE: Creative Commons: for authors who want to share

["Rosenberger, Luke E" <rosenberger@uthscsa.edu>]

The absence of a license would not allow users to "do anything 
with the content except reproduce it without attribution to the 
original author" -- at least, not automatically.  In absence of a 
license, the user must still seek permission from the author for 
any use of the material (other than "fair use").

The actual goal of Creative Commons is not just to allow 
end-users to make certain uses of copyrighted material -- it is 
to go one step further and explicitly grant rights for those uses 
**in advance**, instead of requiring those who wish to use them 
to seek the author's permission later.

This advance clarification of the legal status of the material is 
intended to facilitate sharing and the creative process, by 
cutting out the obstacle of permissions-gathering when the author 
considers it unnecessary.

Luke Rosenberger * Director *
Library Technology & Historical Collections *
UT Health Science Center San Antonio *
MSC 7940, 7703 Floyd Curl Dr * San Antonio TX 78229-3900 *
+1 210.567.2486 * rosenberger@uthscsa.edu *
http://www.library.uthscsa.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sandy Thatcher
Sent: Thursday, 28 August, 2008 21:14
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Re: Creative Commons: for authors who want to share

I wasn't talking about the other CC licenses, Heather, only the
one that allows users to do anything with the content except
reproduce it without attribution to the original author. My point
was that one can accomplish that goal without using any license
at all. The CC license that refers to "everything but commercial
use" has its own problems, however, because the definition of
"commercial" is so nebulous.

Sandy Thatcher
Penn State University Press


>The question of the value of Creative Commons to the author has
>come up in recent Liblicense discussions.
>
>As an author, I use Creative Commons licenses to let people know
>that I wish to share my work, and under what Terms.  For example,
>my scholarly blog, The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics, has
>a Creative Commons license of
>Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike. This lets people know that
>I am happy to let others use my work and creative derivatives
>(for example, translations), as long as I am given credit, and
>they, too share their derivatives with others. Anyone interested
>in commercial use of IJPE blogposts, should get in touch with me.
>
>I can also use CC licenses to commit my work to the public
>domain, or, if I create software, to designate such as open
>source.
>
>There are a number of CC license options.  Any of these moves us
>toward the libre (permissions) aspect of OA.  For the definitions
>of gratis and libre open access (basically free to read, free to
>re- use), see Peter Suber's article in the August SPARC Open
>Access Newsletter, at:
>http://www.earlham.edu/%7Epeters/fos/newsletter/08-02-08.htm#gratis-
>libre
>
>To learn more about Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/
>
>For the academic author for whom the broadest possible
>dissemination of work is essential, CC-licensing is helpful, as
>it provides advance permission to readers to further disseminate
>/reuse the work, with appropriate attribution.
>
>Any opinion expressed in this e-mail is that of the author alone,
>and does not represent the opinion or policy of BC Electronic
>Library Network or Simon Fraser University Library.
>
>Heather Morrison, MLIS
>The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics
>http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com