Boilerplate Permission
The law of copyright gives the author of a work the right to determine, with a few exceptions, when and how their work can be used. An author can give permission, or withhold it, for almost anything they want.
In an attempt to make the process of requesting and giving permission easier, the non-profit group Creative Commons developed a series of standardized licenses - or written permissions - and a symbol to be placed next to the copyright symbol that allows authors to give notice of blanket permissions that they have made available for the use of their work. When you see the Creative Commons notice on a work, you can go to the website and look up the license available for that particular work.
Creative Commons has developed this short video to explain their concept.
Tomorrow I’ll have some thoughts on the Creative Commons project.
June 4th, 2007 at 10:08 am
[...] Creative Commons license does in fact make relatively clear what an author will and won’t allow as a use of his/her work. But I am concerned that in this [...]