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Creative Commons To Pass One Billion Licensed Works In 2015

Posted by timothy on from the pretty-soon-you're-talking-real-non-money dept.

Jason Hibbets writes Sharing is winning. In 2015, Creative Commons is expected to pass one billion licensed works under the commons. Millions of creators around the world use CC licenses to give others permission to use their work in ways that they wouldn't otherwise be allowed to. Those millions of users are the proof that Creative Commons works. But measuring the size of the commons has always been a challenge. Until now...

39 comments

  1. Too bad so much Creative Commons is poisoned. by alzoron · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When creative commons licensing first started gaining a lot of popularity I was excited. What a great way to share creative talent with on another and help to create even better works. Then I started looking on a bunch of music sites that host creative commons licensed material and was shocked by what I found. Song after song and sample after sample contained blatant sampling of other copyrighted works. I personally can't trust anything licensed under creative commons as I can't verify that what I'm using is safe to use without fear of a lawsuit. Unfortunately, the well has been poisoned.

    1. Re:Too bad so much Creative Commons is poisoned. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I know. Unfortunately, non-CC stuff is even worse in this respect, so I guess we have to stop using music.

    2. Re:Too bad so much Creative Commons is poisoned. by cellocgw · · Score: 1

      So what you're saying is we now have the Tragedy of the [Creative] Commons ?

      --
      https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
    3. Re:Too bad so much Creative Commons is poisoned. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Music, just like anything else, just doesn't "happen" one morning. Music and almost every other innovation builds on previous works. Which is why copyright and patents are so bad for society as a whole. Of course music will use parts of previous works. Because its how it has always worked. Yes, taking a direct sample probably is a bit more dangerous, but even taking the same riff can be dangerous. For example it has been ruled in some US courtcase that taking 2 notes from a song might constitute a copyright violation. Not because the judge really wanted it, but the law made it clear that taking a collection of notes from another song might be copyright, so the only thing they could say is that taking 1 note should not be a copyright problem because one note isn't a collection, anything above it might be a problem.

    4. Re:Too bad so much Creative Commons is poisoned. by amber_of_luxor · · Score: 2

      Due Dilligence was never a part of the Creative Commons License.

      --
      Wind Beneath Thy Wings
    5. Re:Too bad so much Creative Commons is poisoned. by Mathinker · · Score: 1

      > Due Dilligence was never a part of the Creative Commons License.

      Unfortunately, give how copyright works, it's impossible to do due diligence with respect to fair use, if you want to push it to the limit.

  2. Ask not who, but why, counting? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why does it matter how trendy a license agreement is? Are the lawyers who drafted this particular license planning to retroactively revoke the freedoms? Terrorists could be sharing shit under Creative Commons, man! We need to find out so we can launch drones at them!!

    1. Re:Ask not who, but why, counting? by gweihir · · Score: 1

      The more use, the more legal footing, as more lawyers and people will have thought about it.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  3. What if Marilyn Monroe had kicked this off? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was wondering how far down the "copyright terrorists" path we would've come if Marilyn Monroe had come up with the concept "Creative Comons" and led by example licensing all photos of her under each type and doing press interviews/tutorials about the system in her breathless voice?
    I do like to dream.

  4. Meh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    Don't care, too busy buying Slashdot Deals!

  5. A least as much quality as App store? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Or better!? Gotta be. It's Commons! And it's Creative!

  6. Shitty summary by rebelwarlock · · Score: 1

    "But measuring the size of the commons has always been a challenge. Until now..."

    And why is that? What changed? Reading the article, it seems like the answer is, "We finally bothered to check."

  7. I could make a billion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I could pretty easily licence a billion works under creative commons. That kind of count is pretty meaningless.

    1. Re:I could make a billion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This year alone, Weiner may produce up to infinity papers!

  8. Yeah, yeah.. by Sqreater · · Score: 0

    This is just another gynocentric "girls-are-better" story that just is not supported by the world at large. Sad, really. They just keep trying to prove the unprovable. The whole tech environment, including gaming, was produced by male geeks who, apparently, cannot program themselves out of a paper bag. Right.

    --
    E Proelio Veritas.
    1. Re:Yeah, yeah.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Women are less likely to post a response to the wrong story, though.

  9. Yes, but how many of those are like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In Soviet Russia
    by Anonymous Coward

    On the frigid steppes of Soviet Russia,
    Land where the Tartars, Huns, and Cossacks
    Frsst Post Makes YOU
    Who now have 20 seconds to drop that weapon.

  10. But how to avoid this? by tepples · · Score: 2

    Eventually some songs will sound like other songs just by coincidence. There are only about 14^7 = 105 million or so distinct hooks of eight notes.* So if someone wants to honestly compose original music and release it under a Creative Commons license, how is he supposed to ensure he didn't accidentally copy someone else's work?

    * 14 is 7 distinct intervals modulo octave equivalence, times 2 for short or long note. Raised to ^7 instead of ^8 because the last note doesn't have an interval or duration.

    1. Re:But how to avoid this? by tgeller · · Score: 1

      What you say is true, but it's not the main issue IMHO. Rather, it's that people rip copyrighted materials whole-cloth and post them as CC.

      I produce short videos for a client, on a moderate budget. I was using lots of CC and public-domain labeled stuff from archive.org and YouTube. Then I realized, "Hey, wait! This TV show from the '50s is *not* public domain! Neither is this educational film from the '70s!"

      This is what comes from people misunderstanding the slogan, "Information wants to be free." You get ignoramuses thinking, "Yeah, and I'm the one who'll set [someone else's stuff] free." There's a word for that -- theft. And that's what sadly permeates collections of "CC/PD" content

      --
      Tom Geller
    2. Re:But how to avoid this? by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      There are only about 14^7 = 105 million or so distinct hooks of eight notes.*

      Because every song has a hook...because every song follows the same format. *facepalm*

      I bet Taylor Swift totally ripped off Bach.

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    3. Re:But how to avoid this? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Because every song has a hook...because every song follows the same format. *facepalm*

      "Hook" can be replaced with "motif" if you prefer classical music lingo. In any case, I'm referring to the most memorable part of a melody, the part to which a judge will pay the most attention when determining the amount and substantiality of copying.

      I bet Taylor Swift totally ripped off Bach.

      That's because most of the Bach family composed before the sound film era and the perpetual copyright regime that it introduced. (Unless you're referring to P. D. Q. Bach, born in 1935.)

    4. Re:But how to avoid this? by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the clarification.. I guess I'm just depressed that artists have to deal with this kind of sh*t in the first place, at all, ever. Music is art, and these matters should be (in my idealistic opinion anyway) dealt with within the art community instead of in the courtroom.. What's a better punishment for ripping someone off as a musician: your own music community shunning you, or having to pay money?

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
    5. Re:But how to avoid this? by tlhIngan · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the clarification.. I guess I'm just depressed that artists have to deal with this kind of sh*t in the first place, at all, ever. Music is art, and these matters should be (in my idealistic opinion anyway) dealt with within the art community instead of in the courtroom.. What's a better punishment for ripping someone off as a musician: your own music community shunning you, or having to pay money?

      And yet "ripping off" music is common and even popularized. Rap was created this way when a drum riff intro was repeated over and over and over again (from Aerosmith? I can't recall). We consider it a legitimate form of music today (for varying degrees of "legitimate"), yet its origins are in copyright infringement. And there have been many a sampler musician who has made great music despite sampling being literally copyright infringement.

      And shunning only works if the community is small, and extremely difficult in something as subjective as art. You can shun, but there is a chance that someone actually likes it, and despite shunning, embraces the "theft" or infringement. Then it's a case of which community is larger or who can grow and evolve taste.

    6. Re:But how to avoid this? by TheDarkener · · Score: 1

      Thank you. I think Creative Commons is so important in this respect, because it allows the "ripping off" (I don't like that term when it comes to music) while attributing the original artist. I think a lot of artists wouldn't mind (maybe even, gasp, be flattered by) someone taking their work and building upon it. Being a musician myself, I know I would. Of course it all depends on what your personal motive for making music is (money vs. happiness).

      I wonder what the music world would be like if it was somehow impossible to make money from it?

      --
      It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.