Creative Commons

Simply put, Creative Commons might refer to three things:

• A set of legal tools/licenses
• The non-profit organization that designed those tools
• The international community and movement supporting the use of those tools

At UNCW, we'll most often talk about Creative Commons in reference to the licenses that creators can apply to their work, which allow for broader sharing and reuse than typical "all rights reserved" copyright licenses. CC licenses were designed to address the tension between the mass degree to which we can share knowledge and culture through the internet, and the ways copyright laws around the world can sometimes restrict that exchange.

The story of Creative Commons began with a piece of U.S. copyright legislation enacted in 1998 called the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). It's purpose was to extend copyright terms for every work licensed in the United States for an additional 20 years. Previously, copyright terms lasted the length of an individual creator's life plus an additional 50 years. (You may have heard the CTEA referred to in reference to Mickey Mouse; the act was enacted just before the original Steamboat Willie cartoon would have passed into the public domain.)

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution holds that "[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.." The limitations around the length of these exclusive rights are important for the general benefit of society after the creator receives whatever compensation they are able to earn. For this reason, the CTEA bothered some people, including Lawrence Lessig, a Professor at Stanford Law. Lessig (2005) pointed out that, "...if Congress has the power to extend existing terms, then the Constitution’s requirement that copyright terms be 'limited' will have no practical effect. If every time a copyright is about to expire, Congress has the power to extend its term, then Congress can achieve what the Constitution plainly forbids."

Lessig, representing web publisher Eric Eldred (whose career involved making public domain works available on the internet), challenged the CTEA in court. Their case, Eldred v. Ashcroft, made it to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003, where Lessig and Eldred lost. The Court decided that Congress' right to extend copyright terms was plainly protected by the Constitution, whereas the wisdom of Congress' choice to do so was not within the rights of the Court to challenge.

Even prior to the Court's decision, however, Lessig connected with others who shared his dream of harnessing the internet as a medium for making creative works widely and freely available. Together, they established Creative Commons as a non-profit organization and published the Creative Commons (CC) licenses in 2002.

As of 2024, CC licenses and public domain tools have been applied to nearly 2.5 billion works. Although many creators simply use the licenses because they fit their needs, those in the Creative Commons movement may also use CC licenses to demonstrate their resistance to the automatic commodification of knowledge and culture, or a belief in sharing as a foundational principle of humanity.

For more on Creative Commons as an organization, check out their website here.

For more on the community that shares a collective mission with Creative Commons, check out the Creative Commons Global Network here.