without asking permission—because permission has already been granted to everyone (...)
The free software and open source software communities have inspired what is sometimes called ‘open content.’ Some copyright holders have made books, music, and other creative works available under licenses that give anyone permission to copy and make other uses of the works without specific permission or a royalty payment. Creative Commons hopes to build on the work of these pioneers by creating a menu of license provisions that people can combine to make their work available for copying and creative reuses (...)
With a Creative Commons license, people can copy and distribute your work but only on the conditions you specify here. Do you want to:
Require attribution?
Allow commercial uses of your work?
Allow modifications of your work?
Or choose the following:
Public Domain
Sampling
Founders’ Copyright
CC-GNU GPL [Brazil]
CC-GNU LGPL [Brazil]”
Comments
As can be seen, Creative Commons (CC) offers many different licenses to choose from. Those who intend to use a CC-tagged work should learn which exact license is applicable. CC developers put freedom of choice for the copyright holder above all. Such freedom means the liberty to invent and enforce or relinquish all kinds of restrictions. Thus, a CC license may barely differ from copyright on one end of the license spectrum and yet offer ultimate, public domain-like freedom of use on the other.
