If you are a loyal reader of this blog you know that two of the major contributor of this blog greatly disagree with each other over the issue of legitimacy of Intellectual property rights.¹² I for one am against intellectual property rights, and I have tried my share to convince my co-author towards my viewpoint. I believe that upto some extent I have managed to convince her, except for I guess patent laws for innovation in Pharmaceutical industry³. But this article is not about whether copyrights are justified or not, in this article I want to convince the readers to utilize the innovation supporting framework of Creative Commons licensing which exists within copyright framework, and release their works under this licensing.

Copyrights Model

Under the copyrights model you release a work of your labor under the Copyright license as defined by your government. Most of the copyrights licenses over the world are similar to each other, and they grant the author/creator exclusive rights to use and sell that work. If a non-copyright holder wants to utilize the the copyrighted work, for commercial or personal uses then he must take the permission from the copyright holder to use that product. For personal usage, this permission is usually granted through the sale of the individual copies of the work. For example when you buy a book you are given the right of reading that book for personal use by the author. If you want to print that book and sell it, then you will need special permissions from the author. If you want to translate that book into another language, if you want to create a movie on that book, if you want to use the characters of that book, you will need special permissions from the author.

Creative Commons Model

In the Creative Commons licensing model, you first acquire the copyright of your work(as I mentioned earlier, its a framework within a framework), and then you let go of some rights on your work. For example you could allow people to use your work as long as they attribute it to you, use it for non-commercial purposes, and release the derivative work under a similar license, or you could release a work under Attribution license which means the user must attribute the usage back to you(otherwise he could do whatever he or she wants with it). A list of these rights which can be released on their own or in a combination with others are:

• Attribution (by) – Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only if they give the author or licensor the credits in the manner specified by these.
• Noncommercial or NonCommercial (nc): Licensees may copy, distribute, display, and perform the work and make derivative works based on it only for noncommercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works or NoDerivs (nd): Licensees may copy, distribute, display and perform only verbatim copies of the work, not derivative works based on it.
• ShareAlike (sa): Licensees may distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs the original work.

For a detailed explanation please refer to the Wikipedia entry on Creative Common licenses⁴

Choose Creative Commons over Copyright

If you are a content creator, that is you write for a living, you are an architect, you are a rising or an established music artist, then all your creations are automatically covered under copyright. As a copyright holder only you can release your creation under a CC license. I am going to cover these cases of each individual content creators as examples and their reasonings on choosing CC over Copyright mode.

1. Architect: If you are an architect, then releasing your architectural designs under CC licenses benefits you more than anything. There are a very little things which change for you. Your work can be freely copied and distributed among students and other architects, and they all will bear your name underneath it. Even if you allow commercial usage of your designs, there is little in there for another architect to benefit from your design, at max he can modify your works and charge only the derivation fees from a client. Customers can freely build based on your designs, but then who really wants to create another Sears Tower in the same city, if a customer really likes your design, and wants to build his building exactly like that, chances are he will do it in a far enough city, from the original constuction and it will only spread your name, as the building will bear “Designed by: <your name>”.
   Even if you allow the least restrictive licensing of CC(that is as long as you are attributed all the usages are allowed, including commercial and derivates), no matter who uses that design to build their own, they will need to put your name over it as “Original Design: <your name>”. If you think this will enable someone from using your design and not attributing you, well then it does not prevent anyone from using your design under a copyright license either. You are free to form any commercial deals with any individual as long as you don’t grant them exclusive rights of your design.
   Warning: If you release a design under Creative Commons license, you cannot revoke it, that designs is now a part of the public domain. If you rely on selling same design to many many individuals, then don’t expect some profits which you usually would expect in a copyright model, although if you are the only Creative Commons architect in the city, then expect the city to be mapped out only in your designs. If you have never resold a design to more than one client, then this is ok.
2. Writer: If you are a budding writer, then releasing your works under Creative Commons allows the wider audience to be able to read your works. Consider this, you are not famous, but you release your work under Creative Commons license under which the general public is able to read your works. If someone decides to use your short story for their story collection(presuming you allowed commercial use of your work) then it gives you the fame, and more people are now going to know you. If someone wants to put your novel on their website they are free to do so as long as they are not selling it(if you chose it that way),this way more and more readers will come to know about your works.
   If you are already an established writer, then releasing your next major work under Creative Commons license(providing you don’t already have an agreement which prevents you from doing so), helps you reach more and more readers. I cannot comment on the amount of money you will make by releasing it under CC license, but you will be more famous than ever.
   Warning: If you release a book under Creative Commons license, you cannot revoke it, that book is now a part of the ever increasing public domain. If you are a writer to make money, then Creative Commons has nothing much to offer, but i
   f you are a writer because you love writing, then there is no better way to show your love for your readers than to release it under a CC license. There is no way of actually telling whether you will be making more money or less, but then be the first one to experiment.
3. Musician: If you are a music artist, then considering the massive monopoly a few artists have over the music industry you have a little chance of achieving any real success. If you get signed by a major recording label, you can become famous, otherwise there is little chance for you to achieve any major success. If you belong to a less famous genre(for example Goth-Metal, Reggaeton, or say Metal in India), then even a major recording labels will not come near you considering the small market for such music. If you release your music under a Creative Commons license you allow your music to be freely shared over the internet, used by podcastes, posted on the blogs, etc etc. Your chances of being heard by more and more people greatly increases. There is a great website for musicians who want to release their music under Creative Commons licences and that is Jamendo(http://www.jamendo.com/). Whether you are a music artist, or just a music lover, there is a great amount of music on that website which is freely available for download. If you would like to use any of those music for your production, there is a very easy and fast licensing process on Jamendo PRO! If you are going to create a youtube video and need a track go to Jamendo and freely download any track you like and use it freely in your personal non-commercial production.
   Nine Inch Nails(NIN) is the most famous band ever to experiment with Creative Commons licensing.⁵ They have managed to reach way more audience by their CC licensed music than they would have had they released the albums under the restrictions of Copyright.
   Warning: If you release a music piece under Creative Commons, you cannot revoke it, that music is now a part of the public domain. Other than that, if you are reading this blog post, chances are you aren’t really as famous as Metallica or Michael Jackson. If you want to stick with the Copyright model and want to be as rich as a Rock Star, go ahead, but let me warn you, the copyright model is failing miserably in the Music industry. People still go and buy paper novels because they like to hold the book in their hands, but the copyright model in music industry is on a demise. Release your music under Creative Commons on Jamendo, and post your link on the commens, and we will guarantee a few loyal listeners to you if not much.

I have tried to create a utilitarian argument for individuals to release their work under a lesser restrictive licensing scheme. But to be honest, the biggest reason why I support avoiding the use of Copyright is because I believe that copyright is only possible through government coercion. A free market will never prevent an individual from using his property in any manner shape or form by creating and respecting artificial property rights. If you are a liberty loving individual, then none of the above listed pros and cons should matter to you, just go ahead and pick up the least restrictive CC license for your next work and share ideas with the whole world. One of the biggest reason why in India we had an IT revolution is because of the lack of copyright enforcement in software industry, we learned to work on the most costliest software and ideas flew freely. Our whole IT industry is a service based industry, and there is little development of commercial software in India. We will not see software development of commercial products for a long time(well as long as American government keeps on creating artificial innovation in America through the artificial monopoly of IP rights).

We have released all contents on this blog under Creative Commons license, our reason is simple, if you like the content, and want to post it somewhere else, do it, but make sure to attribute it back to our site. The more people read about rationality and liberty, the better it is for us. If you would like to print our articles and distribute them for free among other people, please feel free to do so. If you would like to work on our articles and create a better version or your own version of those articles, feel free to do it as long as you link it back to us. Personally speaking I find nothing more smug than petty bloggers putting heavy handed copyright notices in their blog posts, or worse putting “DO NOT COPY” notices on their blogs.

1. Legal or Illegal : Copyright Violations [↩]
2. Violation of Copyrights is illegal [↩]
3. Patent laws:Beneficial or Bane [↩]
4. Creative Commons Licenses, Wikipedia [↩]
5. Nine Inch Nails Ghost I-IV [↩]