Creative Commons Licence risk to writers
The Creative Commons Licence is a protocol on the net whereby creative types can licence their creations to be used by others freely, subject to various restrictions that you might specify. It is commonly used by people who upload photograhps to flickr.com to allow others to use their photos elsewhere without fear of being sued for breach of copyright.
Some writers post up downloadable pdf versions of their books or writings under the Creative Commons Licence. Their intention is to distribute their work freely to others. But what’s to stop someone else downloading your book and then sending it off to a printer and then selling it on their own behalf, keeping the profits themselves?
Nothing it seems. Bestselling author and marketing guru Seth Godin found his downloadable free book “Everyone’s an Expert” being sold on Amazon by someone else. There’s some heated debate in the comments and trackbacks to his post about this on his blog. It seems that the Creative Commons Licence doesn’t prohibit others distributing the work in print form and profiting from it. So Seth does not appear to have any legal recourse to stop this profiteering.
So, if you are a writer who has or who is thinking about distributing your books or writings electronically via the Creative Commons Licence, do check out the fine print before you do so. It would be sensible to think about what additional conditions and restrictions you might want to include for downloading your work and state that clearly on your site.
But bear in mind that at the end of the day, you may have nice legal wording on your site that protects others profiteering from your work but it’s a whole different story trying to enforce it in the event that some scoundrel does in fact rip you off. The music industry is spending millions of dollars trying to stop their music being ripped off and pursuing international court cases to protect their rights - how much time or money can you as an individual spend to try and shut down your thief?
Photo: thanks to oldwest brew.com
- Posted on
Thu, February 15th, 2007 - Author
Yang-May Ooi - Category
- 3 responses
- Leave a comment
February 19th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Yang-Mai, seems to be that it’s dangerous for a writer to put out their “sellable” material on the web unless it can be copy protected (which I understand some e-books can do). Blogging, of course, is different!
BTW do you mind if I blogroll you? Tell me if you mind!
February 21st, 2007 at 3:00 am
wow. I hadn’t heard about this. I don’t see why anyone would use the Creative Commons Licence at all, if it doesn’t give you any copyright protection. Still, you’re right, even if a person does have copyright protection, how many people are going to spend the time and money to sue someone… aarrgh.
March 4th, 2007 at 7:50 am
You are misinformed when you say: “It seems that the Creative Commons Licence doesn’t prohibit others distributing the work in print form and profiting from it.” The Creative Commons licenses offer the option of NC (Non-Commercial), which prohibits others from making commercial use of your work. Seth Godin did not use the NC option, and therefore opened himself up to having his work sold by others.
Before spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt), please check your facts.