The holder of a copyright can give up any of the rights afforded to them through copyright, including releasing the work into the Public Domain with no restriction. In the early days of software development, academics and developers realized that they needed to collaborate on software in order for it to be successful. While some software was kept proprietary, other software was released to the Internet for anyone to view the source code and improve upon. In Open Source software, anyone had access to the source code. While there was a “blessed” master copy of the software, anyone could create a patch or new feature for this software that a governing body could adopt for everyone to use. But an individual could also remix (pull elements from the original and create something new) the software into something unique that only they would use. Virtually all computing devices today include some form of open source software, from the Apache and nginx web server packages which account for the majority of all web servers on the Internet to Apple OSes which are based on the open-source Unix operating system, to Firefox to Chrome and Android which are projects that Google has open sourced under the Chromium project.

Eric Raymond described the difference between Open Source and the Traditional Model of software as “The Cathedral and the Bazaar”, in his book with the same name. A variety of licenses eventually sprung up to allow developers to release software as open source, and sites like GitHub power collaborations on open source software, allowing for software to be cloned, modified, remixed, and reused.

While copyright is automatic, users can also give up their copyright to allow their work to be remixed, built upon, improved, and reused. Creative Commons has become the de facto standard for releasing sharable content on the Internet. Most non-software content on the web are licensed using Creative Commons licensing. It is the license used for Wikipedia and can be found as options on many websites including Flickr, YouTube, and Soundcloud. The goal of Creative Commons is to allow users to adapt, remix, reuse, and improve the content they find online and to promote the transference of knowledge and creativity.

Creative Commons is one of the cornerstones of “remix culture” on the Internet, allowing for people to pull content from a variety of sources and create content such as memes and other viral content.

Every Creative Commons license allows content to be copied, distributed, and publicly displayed. It also allows the medium to be changed (e.g. video to transcript) and allows for public performances and webcasts. Additionally, all Creative Commons licenses are applicable worldwide, perpetual, non-revocable, and nonexclusive.

Creative Commons has three restrictions which creators may mix-and-match to find the ideal license type:

• By Attribution (BY): “You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.”
• No Derivatives (ND): “If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.”
• Share Alike (SA): “If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.”
• Non Commercial (NC): “You may not use the material for commercial purposes.”

A user can combine these elements to determine the license they want to grant for their works. For example, the readings for this course are licensed CC-BY-SA-NC. Because I did not include “ND”, anyone is free to remix or change the course content in whatever way they see fit, and then distribute it. Because I included “BY”, anyone who distributes the material must cite me as the original author. Because I included “SA”, anyone who creates any derivative work based on this course material must also share it under the CC-BY-SA-NC license. Also, because I included “NC”, the material may not be used for commercial purposes. “CC-0” is the term for when none of these elements are included - CC-0 works are released into the public domain with no restrictions. A CC-BY-SA-ND-NC license is the most restrictive license. Creative Commons ranks their license based on a scale of “Free Cultural Works”. Any NC or ND license is not considered a Free Cultural Work as it places restrictions on what people may do with the work.

Current thinking about digital citizenship focuses on teaching students acceptable use of the work of others, as well as giving appropriate credit. The Mozilla Web Literacy framework also promotes identifying Open Culture works on the Internet and learning how to remix them. Therefore, many training modules for digital citizenship are encouraging teachers and students to be able to identify and correctly use Creative Commons work, as well as to license their own work as Creative Commons. The Creative Commons website features a license generator with embed code for a web page. There is also a Creative Commons Add-In for Google Docs that will add CC license text directly into a Google Doc. If you want to use a CC license in a document, copy the text and image from the license chooser into your document, usually in the footer.

AI and Creative Commons

AI has created a lot of concern in the intellectual property space. The clearest guidance so far comes from Bartz v. Anthropic, where a federal judge ruled that training an AI model on lawfully acquired books is fair use, but that Anthropic’s use of pirated copies to build its training library was not — that piracy claim alone led to a $1.5 billion settlement with the affected authors. In short: how you acquire the training data matters as much as what you do with it.

It’s important to remember that Creative Commons licenses don’t override Copyright law. CC licenses simply state the terms and conditions under which you allow others to use your copyrighted works. Therefore, if AI training is Fair Use, CC licenses may not apply. CC licenses would likely apply if the AI is using the work in a way that is not Fair Use (creating a direct adaptation or remix, citing or referencing the work in another work, etc.). In that case, the user of the AI is bound by the CC terms the same as if they were not using AI.