Creative Commons Road Show – Sydney – Wednesday, September 15,

2010

Creative Commons Road Show - Sydney

Wednesday, September 15, 2010 @ NIDA
Web: http://creativecommons.org.au/

Introduction and Overview – Professor Brian

Fitzgerald
International event potentially in 2011

• CC is a Copyright License
• 1709 – Statute of Ann (sp?);

• copyright initially focused on book publishing; has evolved into a

far broader concept
• basic rule is you cannot use someone elses work without
permission
o some things you can do w/o permission (fair dealing), but
these are fairly limited

When you add this to the digital environment, you have to reproduce
and distribute to communicate.
• When you consider the need to reproduce to communicate in
terms of copyright, and internet being based on this – it’s
basically either automating violation or creating “copyright
gridlock”
• 2001, Harvard Law School – group of people meet (technologists,
creative people, lawyers) - “we should develop a legal tool that’s
as effective as the technology (the network)”
o technology in practice was immediate and 24/7; but legal
elements were still slow
o why don’t we create a voluntary mechanism for sharing
your own material – switch copyright on in advance; so
people know what they can do with content and what they
can’t
 Traditional mechanism for copyright (generally) is to
give permission in order to control downstream use.
“you can use my property so long as xyz”
• Copyright is the foundation stone for the whole discussion. If
you’re not talking about copyright you’re not talking about
creative commons

• CC sets out to establish a lawful pot of material that people can

share according to what the license says

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Creative Commons Road Show – Sydney – Wednesday, September 15,
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• In several lawsuits, CC was used as an example of lawful use of

P2P network technologies

“When the market likes to access new opportunities you have to react
to the new.”
• Need to have “Creative Destruction” to move forward
o Creative Commons is somewhere in between

• FUD – Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt

o “If I licensed to every FUD concern, I’d be gridlocked”
• Barack Obama put a CC on the Whitehouse.gov website

In 2001, founders of CC looked back to free software movement

Richard Stallman

• Share human-readable code; share knowledge

• BUT, I want to guarantee that every time I release source code,
the users must respect my original vision for open source
• Lawyers recommended using a copyright license
• Early 1980s – software copyright protected as literary work;
anyone wanting to use the code needs permission. Stallman said
“I’ll share in advance” = GPL

Copyright licensing can be used not only to close downstream use, but
also broaden access. Stallman turned copyright access on its head –
“copyleft”

“Sharing is now a strategic advantage”

• Unless we develop a tool for sharing, we will not be able to share

Government has a special type of copyright called “Crown Copyright”

• If you don’t have a permission to use a piece of work, you can

see it and touch it but you can’t reuse it.

Can’t categorically say linking to copyright infringed material is safe,

but it is in a general sense.

Key Terms

Mandatory – Attribution (BY)

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Creative Commons Road Show – Sydney – Wednesday, September 15,
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Optional – Non Commercial (NC)

• No Derivatives (ND)
• Share Alike (SA)
• ND and SA cannot be used together

What does non-commercial mean?

• Point of contention

Flickr are perhaps the biggest users of CC on the internet

Wikipedia now uses GFDL and CC-by-SA

No TPM’s – Technological Protection Measures

No DRMs – Digial Rights Management

Question: what are the implications of using iTunes for audio if Apple
is enforcing DRM even if you don’t want it? Might mean you cannot
use iTunes w/o violating the terms of the license.

Licensing Your Work

Moral Rights not protected strongly in the US

Search.creativecommons.org

Idee Multicolour Search Lab

The License Structure

• License is structured like a legal document

• Flickr Storm - Search google for Flickr Storm

• ISP and perhaps search engines will not be liable for damages in
case of copyright infringement; common disseminator shouldn’t
be held liable
o Can’t get protection under Safe Harbor if you derive
financial benefit
o What about ISPs, which make money off of any access to
the internet?

CC Case Studies – Elliot Bledsoe

Case Studies available online at Creative Commons Australia in

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Publications section

Cory Doctorow – Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

• “Most people who download the book don’t end up buying it, but
they wouldn’t have bought it in any event.”
•
• …a larger minority treat the e-book as an enticement to buy the
printed book. They’re gained sales.

30,000 downloads in 24 hours; 6 print runs; 20+ formats; 8

translations

- led to an unofficial translation to Russian, which saw so many

downloads that Doctorow could convince publishers to release an
official printed Russian version

Cafune

• Film, concurrent online and theatrical release (alternative

endings)
• 20 most-watched films in Brazil; used data to convince cinema
owners to re-run the file domestically

• “The tide of ‘big screen movie-and-popcorn’ enthusiasts did not

exchange the box office lines for their computers” – Director

• “if there were not demand, the film would not have returned to
the big screen.” – Movie publishers

Sita Sings the Blues

Animation Movie by Nina Paley

Released by CC-By-SA

Revenue from Film

• $23,000 in donations (out of date)
• $19,000 in merchandise
• $3,000 in theatrical revenue
• $3,000 in DVD sales
• $4000 in other fees

• $50,000 total

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Trent Reznor

Independent Release: Ghosts I-IV – 4 EPs of 9 tracks each

• Licensed as CC BY-NC-SA

• 9 Tracks free download; access to remainder after purchase

• 36 CC-licensed tracks
• 5 payment options
o geared towards non-fans through people wanting to remix
everything (FLAC lossless quality) and $300 ultra-deluxe
pack
• 2500 units of ultra-delux available; sold out in 30 hours
• $750,000 net revenue
• 800,000+ transactions in 2 months
• $1.6 million transactions

2 months later – released 2nd album

• released as CC By-NC-SA
• Shared for free in highest quality (no payment option available –
only free)
• 1.4 million downloads in first 2 months
• Had to increase server capacity 7 times

Children of Men
Used sound clip from CC: Male_Thjs_loud_scream and added attribution
license
CCMixter.org (CCMixter?)

Wiki.creativecommons.org/casestudies

CC in Focus
Neale Hooper – GILF Implementation Strategy
“Creative Commons and Government”

GILF - Government Information Licensing Framework

• Specialists in intellectual property in Queensland Crown offices

• Some people use “national security” as an excuse not to share.
• Federal Budget Papers licensed under an Attribution 2.5 Australia

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Creative Commons Road Show – Sydney – Wednesday, September 15,
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• Open release product of 6 years of work which faced tremendous

resistence
• First significant adopter – Parliament of Australia, licensed
www.aph.gov.au under CC-BY-NC-ND
o Why no derivative? Afraid of portraying politicians in a poor
light 
• Full implementation will occur when the new website is released
in late 2010
• Copyright applies to:
o Informational works
o Research outputs (reports, papers, dbs)
o Cultural materials
• Crown can be owner of copyright materials
• Copyright protects datasets if they are sufficiently original

• Public Sector Information (PSI) includes material that is

o Created within government by government employees;
o Produced externally by recipients of government funding;
or
o Prepared by non-government parties and lodged with
government under a statutory obligation or regulatory
direction (e.g. an Environmental Impact Statement)

• Not true to say that copyright does not protect data sets or
databases

• Copyright in data compilations

o Some independent efforts

• Complex flows of information

o Within government – among departments, agencies,
different levels of government
o Between government and community:
 From government to community
 From community to government to community
o Problem of “license logjams:
 No licenses; inconsistent terms; incomprehensible;
transactions cost of negotiated permissions
o Promoting the flow of information requires appropriate
policy frameworks and licensing practices

• ~85% of information should be publicly available

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• Creating a commons of public sector materials

o New conceptualization of “public domain”
o Not just a no rights “wasteland [or] dump on the outskirts
of respectable culture” Bolier (Viral Spiral)
• CC - Something of value in its own right – open knowledge and
content that can be accessed, reused and distributed

• Kate Lundy promoting Open Access to PSI

• Creative Commons is a “Legal tool to implement open

access policy”

• Whole objective is to use CC to create the public commons of

information open, not locked up and proprietary

• Direct, Copyright-based License – see diagram

• Advantages of CC for use by government

o Enforceability of License
 Trumpet Software v OzEmail (1996) Federal Ct,
Justice Heerey
 Jacobsen v Katzer (US Federal Circuit 2008)
o Explicit statement of reuse rights
o Clear statement that info is sourced from government
(attribution/provenance) – increased user confidence
o Universal recognition of symbols
o Discoverability of digital objects
o Enables legal remix and mashup
• Attribution and Provenance
o Attribution

“Venturous Australia”

Government 2.0 Taskforce Report

Access to Public sector information law, technology & policy (search for
it)
• Free for download in a week’s time

CC in Focus – Case Study

Bernard de Broglio
Mosman Municipal Council

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Creative Commons Road Show – Sydney – Wednesday, September 15,
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• First exposed to CC via Flickr

• Used CC licensed images on their website
• Contacts with constituents via CC related contact
• CC-Licensed Integrated into department screensavers
• Talk about Wikipedia and CC/Copyright
• See “Mosman Community Engagement Strategy” – licensed as
CC-by-ND
o http://mosmanroundtable.net/ces/
• See also – catalogue and repository of information:
http://data.gov.au
o Datasets and information should be made publicly
available and licensed under Creative Commons
• Key arguments to management have been about saving money.
o CC license is attractive because of all the weight behind it;
o plus branding access of CC
o and interoperability with other government datasets
• “When you fit in with the philosophy of the web you tend to be
more successful.”

Issue of withholding public data – Victorian Bushfires

Google created a mash-up of a bush fire map using Google Maps and
approached the government to gain a live feed for information that
could be inputted into the map to help give people up to the minute
information - but the government said no. In the wake of the deaths,
there is beginning to be a change of heart from the government, but
it’s still very slow going.

CC Local Champions Panel

• Jonathan Hutchinson from ABC
• Delia Browne – MCEECDYA (Copyright for Schools and TAFE)
• Paula Bray (Powerhouse Museum)
• Liam Wyatt (Wikimedia Australia)

Delia Browne
References:
• http://smartcopying.edu.au/scw/go - see Creative
Commons/Open Education section
• http://learn.creativecommons.org/education
• http://creativecommons.org.au/learn-more/educators-resources

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• http://P2PU.org - Peer to Peer University

• $80 Million in licensing per annum

• Current license scheme is based on traditional photocopying, not
digital technologies, which results in far greater expenses when
incorporating traditional copyright.
• See their website for basic how-to guides on locating CC licensed
materials as well as the implications for each license when
sharing information themselves

Paula Bray – PowerHouse Museum

References:
• http://powerhousemuseum.com
o See Rights and Permissions for descriptions on domains or
licenses
• Photo Blog: http://powerhousemuseum.com/imageservices
• http://www.flickr.com/ - Commons on Flickr
• http://www.paulhagon.com/thenandnow - Flickr and Google
street view mashup
• Teacher’s Notes:
http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/education/teachernotes.ph
p
• See Also: “Frock Stars”

• ~80,000 files online; ~70,000 files

• Created Flickr Account – much of it CC licensed
• 9 or 10 groups on Flickr; encourage them to license as CC so
they can share on the Photo on Image of the day (huge response
in contributions)

o Exhibitions
o Information for visits to the museum

• Commons on Flickr - no known license

• Strategic Plan incorporates open licensing of materials (including
no known licences)
• Digital New Zealand - “we would like to use aspects of your
collection that relate to New Zeland”
• Encouraging use of their data by others - Use in History?

Initial Fear:
• Loss of control and loss of revenue.

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• “Don’t release it, you’ll use sales!”

What they found:

• Sales of the same content are up
• Inquiries have exploded
• People are finding out about other collections; audience growing

Johnathan Hutchinson (Sp?) – ABC.net.au

References:
• http://pool.org.au
• http://pool.org.au/birdlands
• http://pool.org.au/video/rossco/bea_miles_the_voice_behind_the_
pictures
• http://pool.org.au/users/abc_archives

• Looking at open participatory processes

o Not just CC, but process, frameworks and governance – far
beyond the media
• Heavily involved in community curation; not just what the ABC
wants
• Looking at what emerges when community experts interact with
media experts
o Gretchen Miller – Birdlands
 sent out call for contributions; will roll into program
• Instigating/cultivating broader cultural development
• Public choose what licenses they use – from Public Domain to
more restricted forms of CC licenses
• Remix and Reuse possibilities very exciting
o Many community participants interested in remixing –
producing new works and new meanings
o E.g. Aged Musics – takes work Bea Miles (by Rossco)
http://pool.org.au/video/rossco/bea_miles_the_voice_behind
_the_pictures
• ABC Open Archive – http://pool.org.au/users/abc_archives
• “PoolCasts” – programs created based on content shared on Pool

• Interests in site coming largely from major countries – e.g. US,

UK, Germany

Organisational concerned with largely financial implications. E.g.How to

increase sharing of material without cutting off revenue streams.

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See Also:
• EngageMedia - http://engagemedia.org
• Al Jazeera (sp?) – http://cc.aljazeera.net

Liam Wyatt - Wikimedia Foundation

References:
• White Phosphorous –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus
o Image from Al Jazeera regarding Gaza Conflict that only
they had access to cover
• Dictionary of Sydney: http://dictionaryofsydney.org
o http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/culture_and_custo
ms
 After 1960 there are minimal colour images because
of problems with licensing costs
o Artists Camps:
http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/artists_camps
 Contributors voted to include CC-By-SA at the top of
the article
 Google Sydney Artists Camps – minimal content on
DoS site; but same article on similar article on
Wikipedia has far more publicity.
• Wikipedia article indicates substantial parts of
the article taken from the DoS site. Has
resulted in the DoS page being the most
frequently visited page on the site.

• All text on Wikipedia CC-BY-SA

o Free Encyclopedia – is no cost AND no restrictions (gratis
and libre)
o Don’t accept ND content
o Use History to confirm references as well as proper
licenses

Questions and Discussion

What about Moral Rights?
Can only be invoked in certain conditions. Famous case of Sculptor in
Canada created sculptor of flying geese. Someone tried to hang
Christmas decorations on the piece and the artist sued to prevent this
from happening and won.

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E.g. Melbourne art dealer was going to saw up a Picasso painting into
small pieces to sell to people, and this was prevented.

What about indigenous collections - for instance Elders who have

passed away – that may have cultural implications. Where are the
implications for Indigenous cultural rights?

Hard CopyLeft – CC-BY-SA

You can make commercial uses of this content, but if it’s a derivative
work you must release the work under the same license – effectively
losing commercial exclusivity; it’s a defacto CC-BY-NC.

Australia Council for the Arts

References:
• http://remixmylit.com
• http://remixmylit.com/anthology/
• http://australiacouncil.gov.au/the_arts_projects
• http://australiacouncil.gov.au/writersguide
• Arts Digital http://www.artsdigitalera.com/

CC-By
This document is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0
Unported License. To view this license online please visit:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

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