- In the face of ever longer and stronger
copyright laws, Creative Commons has launched a suite of licenses - its first project
of many - to help recreate a healthy public domain. While copyright laws, as written,
might make sense for large media companies, they are clumsy and counterintuitive
for collaboration and sharing. Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation founded
on the notion that some people prefer to share their works on more generous terms
than copyright provides. The Creative Commons licenses, launched in December of
2002, allow authors to retain copyright while allowing specific uses of their work on
certain conditions. While the licenses are not a panacea for complex copyright issues,
they provide authors with tools "to live a little better under that (copyright) system as
it stands today." Licensing is only the first of many Creative Commons projects that
will deal with copyright. Creative Commons is housed at Stanford Law School. For
more information, to obtain licenses, or to view a short video about Creative
Commons, visit: http://creativecommons.org (Syllabus, vol 16 no 9, Apr 03)