Creative Commons: People's Panacea or Corporate Imperialist?

Probably neither.

This post is about Creative Commons, and about intellectual property rights. There are no links to a blog here, but if you're a blogger, or put anything online, you should be interested.

I was reminded of Creative Commons by a rather strident article, "Software tool promises 1-click colonialism." The article's tone was set by the first sentence: "The music industry has a long and shameful history of robbing black artists of their rights."

Apparently, the author believes that Creative Commons is going to integrate Liblicense with MIT Media Lab's One Laptop Per Child initiative (OLPC) in order to subjugate the oppressed masses of the world.

That accusation got me interested in Creative Commons. I discovered that it was another of San Francisco's contributions to the online world, that some people were opposed to it, and that it had ardent supporters.

I ran into several supporters in a discussion thread on (you guessed it) BlogCatalog.

I don't use Creative Commons myself, and don't plan to in the foreseeable future. Not because I know anything bad about it, but because I don't know anything that makes it worth my while.

The worst criticism I encountered of Creative Commons that was plausible was that it was a solution to a problem that didn't exist: that it was irrelevant.

But, I could be wrong.

My own approach to protecting intellectual property rights is to post copyright notices, periodically check for copies of my work, and read the TOS of places where I post my work.

Creative Commons, based on comments I've read that came from people whose opinions I've learned to respect, seems to be a potentially useful organization. But, like any other organization, it's just common sense to read the TOS (Terms of Service), and any other information the organization provides, about what they think can be done with whatever you give them.

Creative Commons
Creative Commons FAQ