Creative Commons, the non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative work available for others legally to build upon and share, has launched version 3.0 of their copyright licenses.
This updated version introduces a number of changes including spinning off the ‘generic’ license to be the US license and creating a new generic license, now known as the ‘unported’ license (detailed explanation here).
I’ve taken the opportunity to update the CC license on this blog. It’s not version 3 but is now specific to the ‘UK: England and Wales’ jurisdiction.
I’ve also had a re-think about the restricted license I had in place until now that wouldn’t allow you to use anything on this blog to make a derivative work (not that the blog scraper scammers paid any attention to that or any other aspect of intellectual property rights).
Now you can make derivative works if you want – meaning, build on anything I’ve created here – as long as you abide by the terms of the license.
Here’s the full text of the Creative Commons license that now applies here:
Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 UK: England & WalesYou are free:
- to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work
- to make derivative works
Under the following conditions:
- Attribution. You must give the original author credit.
- Non-Commercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
- Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one.
For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the licence terms of this work.
Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.
Apart from the remix rights granted under this license, nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author’s moral rights. Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.
This is a human-readable summary of the Legal Code (the full licence).
As noted, any of these license conditions can be waived. So if you have something in mind and want to do something outside the scope of the CC license, just ask.
2 responses to “Creative Commons version 3 launched”
I sometimes wonder how usefull the Creative Commons licenses are because there already exists a defacto “creative commons” out there. Also, I’m thinking of removing the “non commercial” restriction on my blog content. If others can figure out a way to make money from my work then that is a good thing, I can always lock the door later :-)
Tom, I think it works where everyone agrees to abide by the rules. That covers the majority of people everywhere.
Re removing the non-commercial restriction on your blog, that’d be quite a bold move on a high-visibility and -profile blog like yours. While the majority would respect the terms of the license, you’d be giving a bright green light to those who don’t. Mind you, bad guys will steal your content anyway and monetize it, whether you change your CC rules or not.