Creative Commons
Too often the debate over creative
control tends to the extremes. At
one pole is a vision of total control
— a world in which every last use
of a work is regulated and in which
“all rights reserved” (and then
some) is the norm. At the other
end is a vision of anarchy — a world
in which creators enjoy a wide range
of freedom but are left vulnerable
to exploitation. Balance, compromise,
and moderation — once the driving
forces of a copyright system that
valued innovation and protection
equally — have become endangered
species.
Creative Commons is working to revive
them. We use private rights to create
public goods: creative works set
free for certain uses. Like the
free software and open-source movements,
our ends are cooperative and community-minded,
but our means are voluntary and
libertarian. We work to offer creators
a best-of-both-worlds way to protect
their works while encouraging certain
uses of them — to declare “some
rights reserved.”
