Creative Commons in the UK
OpenBusiness.cc, with the Arts Council of England, released a report today on how and how much artists in the United Kingdom are taking advantage of the many perks of Creative Commons licenses. The results? A pleasant surprise.
The report suggests that one key reason for artists’ using CC is that they perceive standard copyright as too complex and costly. CC licenses are an effective and practical tool for new media artists, who adapt existing work. Artists are also using CC to exploit network effects and to better market their creative work. CC is still used by an avant-garde of mainly rather young artists; more than 140,000 websites in the UK make use of such licenses.
140,000 may not be huge, but it’s encouraging. Matt’s comments, which I first read on Boing Boing, get right to the point.
“…I think it’s interesting artists seem to be using CC licenses on instinct, even if many haven’t thought through how that can really apply or feed through into their work, other than through network effects related to distribution.”
The individual artists are starting to really ‘get it’…the idea of giving up a little power in order to build a stronger relationship with the listener/viewer/consumer is catching on. I hope this trend continues and we see it cross the pond over to our neck of the woods (freeways?) in the near future.
November 30th, 2006 at 9:02 am
140,000 web sites making use of CC in the UK alone is pretty good going.
I think that Boing Boing are totally right about how much people are using it on instinct, and partly out of disaffection for the ‘old ways’.
This gets really interesting when someone who has been granting CC licenses for their work gets really big.
November 30th, 2006 at 9:40 am
Hi Paul,
I agree with you — 140,000 is definitely an achievement. I’m happy to see that the UK is on the right track. You’re right - the instinctual move to something that is clear and easy to understand makes a lot of sense (I know I felt the same way and did the same thing with my own personal blog), especially since from what I hear the governing bodies making copyright decisions in the UK are firmly holding on to the ‘old ways’. One of which, the term of 50 years for musician copyright holders (as opposed to the 95 years that the majority of the rest of the world stands by), still shows no sign of changing — which complicates the situation for artists even more by confusing how their music is protected on a global scale.
As always, an interesting and controversial topic.