Creative Commons

1. How does the Creative Commons (CC) project alter the way we understand ownership and copyright?

I'm not sure I entirely understand the CC project and how it differs from traditional copyrighting (other than that it appears to be a free service and you won't be finding your CC licensed work in the Library of Congress). If I am indeed gathering what I think I'm gathering from the CC case studies, it would seem that the primary purpose of pursuing a CC license is to make easier and more clear the freedoms you wish to afford viewers and users of your original work. With traditional copyrights, the copyright owner has the right to transfer elements of the copyright to another entity or to grant permissions of use, but it seems that the law is more rigid and is intended to restrict all use of an original work to its creator. This seems to serve a very defensive purpose, which may have its place, but if you hold too tightly onto your work, you might miss opportunities for a further unfolding of your works' potential. In a community of artists who - with the great array of digital media available - are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of making their art more accessible to others for the purposes of further use, exposure and distribution, it seems that the rigidity of a traditional copyright may be stifling the potential artistic/creative gains that might accompany a much more expansive, common-use system. So, the CC project appears to be giving the license owner more freedom in making their work available to others, while still ensuring that they will receive due credit for their art. In this way, they can actively participate in that community which hopes to "share and share alike," being granted in return the luxury of lawfully appropriating others' work (or elements of it) to aid in the development of their own artistic expression. In essence, it means opening up ownership on some level to the community, rather than hoarding it for oneself, which - I seem to gather - many artists are coming to view as a detriment to their art instead of a necessary and beneficial precaution.

2. How does this project affect the subject(s) of a work?

I suppose it affords greater license to those hoping to alter the subject of a work for their own purposes, thereby forever changing the subject as it was intended to be, the meaning it was intended to embody. I cant quite force myself to view this as a bad thing, however, as the original work (and therefore the subject) will remain intact - at least as long as its original creator wishes it to; it will not be extinguished simply by the act of appropriation. In fact, I believe the subject - if used in the altered works - will be given new life, additional meaning, further purpose. Its legacy prosperity will no longer be tied entirely to that of the original artist, but will instead be sown throughout a much larger and more diverse population, with connections much more vast than could have been developed by one lone artist. As long as there remains a tie between the subject and its originator (i.e., proper credit given by would-be appropriators), I believe the subject retains its original meaning and thereby maintains its authenticity.

3. How would a CC license have altered the works in our textbook reading (Gone with the Wind (GWTW), the work of Sherrie Levine and Michael Mandiberg)?

It's a bit difficult to answer this question, as it would depend on which types of CC licenses the works had had applied to them. But it seems to me that with a CC license of any variety, the restrictions around GWTW would not have been quite so limiting. Potentially, the characters could have lived on in some capacity through others' works (e.g., movies, books, plays, t.v. shows, product lines, etc.), though with such liberty would have come a greater freedom to alter their images. I'm not very learned when it comes to matters of law and red tape, so I don't fully understand the nuanced implications of a copyright or a CC license on such works. In the case of GWTW, it doesn't really sound as though the owners of the copyright (the estate) wanted to grant greater freedoms regarding the use of the book's subjects, so I'm struggling to see what might have been different had they access to a CC license. As to the works of Sheerie Levine and Michael Mandiberg, I think a CC license would have kept them from being able to call their work simply their own; perhaps it would have been more clear that they were required to credit the original art's creator. It seems that would have undermined the purpose behind their works, however, considering the reproductions would have been made with permission and their origins would not be so ambiguous or easily overshadowed. I would like to think that, being granted permission to use another's work (in whatever manner the terms allow), an artist would be less likely to feel the need to duplicate it and call it her/his own, that all artists would feel a greater, shared sense of commonality and shared creativity, and would practice fairness and integrity when choosing to alter another's work and attribute it to their own creativity. Without such rigid law, would people be so likely to oppose those restrictions that do exist? Would they be "heard" if they did? We viewers care about their message?

4. Does the CC project afford any protection to the right of publicity (the Bela Lugosi case)?

Under "Scope of Rights Waived" in the terms of the license, the developers of CC - if I understand the text correctly - seem to explain that a CC license does not effect third-party rights related to the content of the work (e.g., publicity rights of people appearing in a photograph); that is, any third-parties who have a right to regulate the use of their images will continue to have that right under the CC license and any further use of the image must not infringe upon those rights. Again, I don't really know my way around matters of law, but it seems that this would indicate some protection in matters of publicity. Where publicity is not just a third-party issue, however, but the primary cause for legal protection, I'm not sure if and how a CC license would offer its protection. If the right of publicity provides the individual with a property right in her/his identity, it seems like it wouldn't be too far a stretch to apply to it the terms of a CC license, granting others permission to use it for their purposes. After all, it would be up to the owner of the identity whether they felt comfortable giving others that freedom, right? And if they did feel comfortable, isn't it their right to do so? Would credit have to be given to the source of the identity each time it was used? How would that be done? What would it look like? Would that affect the message the identity's use was meant to convey? For good or bad?