WEBVTT 00:02.560 --> 00:04.380 All right. 00:04.620 --> 00:07.160 I'll go ahead and get started here. 00:07.160 --> 00:08.540 Welcome, everybody. 00:08.540 --> 00:13.720 I'm Jim Rennie and this is Licensing Agreements 101, the Creative Commons license. 00:13.900 --> 00:29.760 And if anybody here doesn't know what the Creative Commons license is, basically it allows content creators to license their content, but reserve some rights in addition. 00:29.760 --> 00:32.420 We're going to get into all that in just a second. 00:32.420 --> 00:40.200 But before we do, because we're going to be talking about the law and legal theories, copyright, we have to have a disclaimer. 00:41.240 --> 00:45.280 All right, this presentation is for educational purposes only. 00:45.280 --> 00:49.500 It is not legal advice, only my opinion on what the law is. 00:50.020 --> 00:51.920 I am not a lawyer yet. 00:54.440 --> 00:56.300 All right, entertainment. 00:56.300 --> 00:59.200 I don't know if you're gonna be entertained by this, but you could be. 01:00.300 --> 01:10.640 All right, and if you require legal advice, you should talk to a lawyer who is licensed to practice law where you live, either your state or your country if you don't live in the U.S. 01:11.520 --> 01:13.400 All right, now we can get on with the show. 01:14.540 --> 01:18.640 Here's what we're going to be doing over the next 45 minutes or so. 01:18.920 --> 01:31.500 I'll have a quick introduction, a little more about who I am and why I'm here, and then short background on the Creative Commons license, who created it, why it was created, and then we're gonna walk through the license section by section. 01:31.560 --> 01:35.260 But don't worry, I'm not actually going to read the license to you. 01:35.440 --> 01:40.640 You should read it yourself, and it would be terribly, terribly boring for me to stand up here and read the license to you. 01:40.940 --> 01:50.980 But we are gonna go through section by section, so after the con, if you want to go back and compare the actual license to what we talked about here, you could probably teach yourself a little more about the law. 01:51.580 --> 01:57.160 And then we're gonna have how to maximize your protection under the license, which is really short. 01:57.300 --> 02:02.400 There's like two things you need to know to be fully covered under the Creative Commons license. 02:02.820 --> 02:06.320 And if we have time at the end, we will have question and answer. 02:06.540 --> 02:09.500 Although I'm not promising anything, but hopefully we will have time. 02:11.200 --> 02:17.420 All right, first of all, like I said, my name is Jim and I'm not affiliated with the Creative Commons in any way. 02:17.440 --> 02:19.300 You can take that as a plus or minus. 02:19.720 --> 02:23.420 I am a law student currently studying law in New York City. 02:23.420 --> 02:25.980 So like I said, I'm not a lawyer yet. 02:25.980 --> 02:27.160 Hopefully I will be. 02:27.820 --> 02:30.840 And why am I talking about the Creative Commons license? 02:31.560 --> 02:33.600 And that breaks down into two sections. 02:33.600 --> 02:40.020 First, it's because a lot of people all across the internet are starting to use the Creative Commons license for their content. 02:40.140 --> 02:44.180 There's a lot of commercial services that utilize the Creative Commons license. 02:44.460 --> 02:49.760 And on the other hand, why am I talking about Creative Commons license instead of, say, the GPL? 02:50.320 --> 03:03.240 And the answer to that is because the Creative Commons license is a little easier to understand, easier to get through in 50 minutes, and because a lot of what I'm talking about today will apply to the GPL and other licensing agreements. 03:03.240 --> 03:06.920 So you can take what you've learned and apply it to other licenses, hopefully. 03:07.780 --> 03:13.040 And I'm talking about the Creative Commons because it's really important to know your rights. 03:13.180 --> 03:20.260 And you'll see, basically, you are giving up your rights to the public when you license your content under this license. 03:21.060 --> 03:35.260 And you really need to know how to protect yourself, what to expect, and if you're a user of the content, you need to make sure that you follow the license correctly so that you don't breach the license and could end up in a lawsuit, which nobody wants. 03:37.060 --> 03:40.760 Okay, so what kind of people use the Creative Commons license? 03:40.980 --> 03:47.280 Mostly people who are creating content, not so much coders and programmers, lots of writers and bloggers, etc. 03:47.280 --> 04:06.500 And these commercial services have built-in Creative Commons licensing, like Movable Type, TypePad for bloggers, Flickr, you can go search for Creative Commons photos, and even Yahoo and LimeWire have searches specifically for Creative Commons licensed material. 04:06.580 --> 04:13.560 And I'm sure the number of commercial services that utilize Creative Commons is going to grow as the years go on. 04:15.300 --> 04:34.100 So the Creative Commons itself is a nonprofit organization, and they originally founded at Harvard in 2001 by such notable people as Lawrence Lessig, who is on the board, and it's currently at Stanford Law School, Center for Internet Law and Society, which is run by Jennifer Granik, 04:34.100 --> 04:39.820 who is going to be speaking here, I think, in about an hour and 45 minutes. 04:42.980 --> 04:45.840 Now, the Creative Commons license, why was it created? 04:46.160 --> 04:52.480 Well, first of all, it really was meant to be a non-coder counterpart to the GPL, and there was the perceived need. 04:52.480 --> 04:53.220 What was the need? 04:53.220 --> 05:01.280 Well, under federal and state law, originally, there was full copyright control and public domain on the other side. 05:01.500 --> 05:11.480 Full copyright control, meaning the creator of the content had full control over who could use it, when they could use it, why they could use it, except for fair use. 05:11.640 --> 05:12.640 All right, thank you. 05:13.500 --> 05:19.820 But in general, the creator of the content dictated the terms when anybody could use it. 05:19.900 --> 05:29.300 On the other hand, there was public domain, which meant the public could use it anytime they wanted to, and the original creator had no control over their content. 05:29.760 --> 05:40.260 And so there was a need in the community for an in-between point, and that's what the Creative Commons license really is, in-between copyright control and public domain. 05:40.960 --> 05:45.300 And of course, there's the free software ideals that information wants to be free. 05:45.300 --> 05:50.880 We want to share our content with others so that we can all be more creative, build on each other's content. 05:50.880 --> 05:54.140 We don't want to hide our content, just use it ourselves. 05:56.180 --> 06:02.040 So when you select a Creative Commons license, there are actually several options you can choose from. 06:03.580 --> 06:06.040 And attribution is always required. 06:06.040 --> 06:09.820 You have to have the attribution clause in your Creative Commons license. 06:09.860 --> 06:19.120 But the non-commercial use requirement and share-alike requirement, also known as copy left, those are optional, but we're going to go through those today. 06:19.120 --> 06:27.460 And today, we're going through the version 2.5 license, which I found pretty interesting because my personal blog, I think, is still under version 1.0. 06:27.460 --> 06:31.580 I didn't actually realize Creative Commons revs their licenses occasionally. 06:31.720 --> 06:36.160 So you should go home and check if your content, what version is licensed under. 06:36.480 --> 06:47.000 The Creative Commons still keeps the old versions up and on the web, so you're not in any danger if you have an old version of it, the license not being valid, but they do update the legal language from time to time. 06:49.120 --> 06:50.520 All right. 06:51.420 --> 07:01.500 Before we get into the actual wording of the Creative Commons license, we have to go over some basic legal terms concerning licensing agreements. 07:01.780 --> 07:05.020 And the first is, what exactly is a license? 07:05.460 --> 07:10.680 A license is basically giving some of your rights or privileges to someone else who doesn't have them. 07:10.920 --> 07:16.620 So, for example, we're all sitting here in the parking lot of the Alexis Park today, but this is private property. 07:17.000 --> 07:21.760 And normally, if you're on someone's private property without permission, you can be arrested for trespassing. 07:22.320 --> 07:30.100 So the Alexis Park has granted a license to DEF CON and basically to us to be here without trespassing. 07:30.380 --> 07:31.820 So that's what a license is. 07:31.820 --> 07:37.400 They're granting the right of use of the property to us for a limited amount of time. 07:40.560 --> 07:41.420 All right. 07:41.420 --> 07:46.960 I know this is called licensing agreements, but the Creative Commons license is actually a contract. 07:48.100 --> 07:50.580 And so we have to define what's a contract. 07:50.860 --> 07:57.940 A contract is an agreement between at least two parties, and you have to exchange something for there to be a valid contract. 07:57.940 --> 08:02.880 If it's only one person giving something to someone else, that's a gift and not a contract. 08:02.880 --> 08:05.460 So there has to be an exchange going on. 08:05.980 --> 08:09.920 And the parties have to act as if they're under the contract. 08:09.920 --> 08:13.560 You do not have to sign a contract for it to be valid. 08:13.940 --> 08:26.600 You just have to act as though you're behaving... modify your behavior so that you fall under the contract, act as though you're using the content as if you're under the contract, and you will be bound to the contract. 08:27.900 --> 08:30.680 And contracts are governed by state law. 08:31.000 --> 08:32.260 This is very important. 08:32.380 --> 08:38.780 This is why I said at the beginning, you need to talk to lawyers who live in your state if you have questions about the law. 08:38.880 --> 08:42.940 Because all contract law is governed by state law and varies from state to state. 08:43.140 --> 08:47.580 So to be sure, you always have to talk to a lawyer in your state. 08:50.220 --> 08:55.200 So we combine those two, a contract and a license, and we get a licensing agreement. 08:55.760 --> 09:05.660 And under the creative commons, what the agreement is, is the creator of the content allows people to use that content how they wish with certain restrictions. 09:05.800 --> 09:18.740 And the content user agrees to those restrictions and has to follow them, which is called a legal detriment because they're obeying additional rules that they wouldn't have had to obey otherwise. 09:19.900 --> 09:22.220 And so that creates a licensing agreement. 09:25.040 --> 09:26.520 Sorry, just a second. 09:29.810 --> 09:30.690 Okay. 09:31.170 --> 09:38.130 So I know a lot of you are sitting out there, or maybe some of you, and you're thinking, well, this is all about copyright and what is copyright. 09:38.350 --> 09:40.390 And copyright is under federal law. 09:41.130 --> 09:44.630 Why does he keep talking about state law and why state law is important? 09:45.370 --> 09:47.070 This goes back to what I said before. 09:47.070 --> 09:53.850 Basically, federal copyright law creates this bundle of rights that you have any time you create your content. 09:54.550 --> 09:58.530 And copyright, your content is copyrighted the instant you create it. 09:58.530 --> 10:01.930 You don't have to do anything special to gain copyrights. 10:01.930 --> 10:10.990 But once you gain those rights and parcel them out to other people through licensing agreements, that's a contract, and contracts are always falling under state law. 10:11.510 --> 10:19.470 So unless the contract has language that goes directly against federal law in some way, you should always be covered under state law. 10:21.630 --> 10:22.230 All right. 10:22.230 --> 10:28.650 Now we're going to get into some of the actual language of the Creative Commons Agreement. 10:28.990 --> 10:36.730 And as I go through, I'm going to try to emphasize what each section means for you, what the practical implications are of each section. 10:37.470 --> 10:42.710 And so the first one is they define terms they use throughout the contract. 10:43.150 --> 10:51.230 And they define actually six or seven terms, but most important for us are these two, collective works and derivative works. 10:51.750 --> 11:00.310 Now, collective work is any work that redistributes content that is unmodified, but in a collection with other content. 11:00.490 --> 11:07.450 Obvious examples are like a mixed CD with the original version of the song with other songs, or a collection of short stories. 11:07.450 --> 11:08.850 Those are collective works. 11:08.850 --> 11:11.590 They have the unmodified work bundled with other works. 11:12.170 --> 11:17.270 Now, derivative works build upon or change the original work that's being licensed. 11:18.150 --> 11:34.410 So again, obvious examples are remixes of songs, or say if there's a novel and you create a sequel based on the characters or situations in the first novel, that's a derivative work because you're reusing that person's ideas. 11:35.730 --> 11:43.130 And a work under the Creative Commons, a work is either collective or derivative, but not both. 11:44.050 --> 11:51.030 And my guess would be if you had a collection of derivative works, you'd probably fall under the derivative works section. 11:52.130 --> 11:54.050 At least that's my impression. 11:56.250 --> 11:58.170 All right, section two. 11:58.510 --> 12:07.250 Section two is important because it reminds us that the Creative Commons license explicitly does not want to impede upon fair use rights. 12:07.890 --> 12:09.850 Fair use rights are still intact. 12:09.850 --> 12:11.090 And what is fair use? 12:11.090 --> 12:18.550 It means that any content that's out there under normal federal copyright, you can use in a limited way. 12:18.730 --> 12:29.590 Like, for example, if you're writing a book review, you can quote some dialogue from the book, and that's a fair use, probably, because you're not republishing the whole work and it's for critique. 12:31.050 --> 12:48.110 And it's also important to note that because fair use is not being limited in any way, if you're a licensor of content, if you're a content creator with your content under the Creative Commons, people don't have to use your content under the Creative Commons. 12:48.110 --> 12:50.990 They can choose to follow fair use instead. 12:51.650 --> 12:57.410 You're making an offer for a contract for them to use the Creative Commons, but they don't have to agree to it. 12:57.510 --> 12:59.070 They can use fair use. 13:00.450 --> 13:03.030 And it also does not restrict first sale rights. 13:03.030 --> 13:09.010 The creator of the content retains all rights to sell their work and license it in other ways. 13:09.090 --> 13:13.750 And there are also other copyright privileges, which I don't want to get into, because I'll be here for another hour. 13:16.350 --> 13:20.070 All right, section three, the license grant. 13:20.070 --> 13:22.870 Now, how is the Creative Commons license being granted? 13:23.370 --> 13:28.850 It's a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual license. 13:29.390 --> 13:32.230 So most of these are pretty self-explanatory. 13:32.230 --> 13:34.790 Worldwide, obviously, anybody in the world can use it. 13:34.790 --> 13:36.830 You're not restricting only U.S. 13:36.950 --> 13:38.450 use or distribution. 13:38.770 --> 13:44.210 Royalty-free, you don't have to pay anything, ever, if you use a work under the Creative Commons. 13:44.910 --> 13:48.130 Non-exclusive, anybody who wants to can come use your content. 13:48.370 --> 13:52.030 And perpetual, meaning it lasts for the life of the copyright, which in the U.S. 13:52.030 --> 13:55.650 is 70 years after the original creator's death, at least for written works. 13:55.650 --> 13:57.050 And I actually forgot to look. 13:57.050 --> 13:58.570 Is that right for all works? 13:59.630 --> 14:00.830 Okay. 14:05.010 --> 14:06.210 Okay. 14:06.750 --> 14:10.270 Which we're assuming all of us are natural people here, so... okay. 14:12.010 --> 14:13.950 And... all right. 14:16.050 --> 14:17.250 No. 14:18.130 --> 14:23.030 But I believe Congress keeps extending the deadline for corporate-created works. 14:24.350 --> 14:28.630 That's kind of Disney's fault, in a way, because they don't want to lose the Mickey Mouse copyright. 14:30.410 --> 14:31.090 All right. 14:31.090 --> 14:35.750 Section 3, continuing on, is what exactly is being granted. 14:36.510 --> 14:49.830 And you have, under the Creative Commons license, if you want to utilize someone's work, you have the right to reproduce it as a collective work or create derivative works, and you also have public performance rights, which are very important. 14:49.830 --> 14:53.170 You're not limited to creating work for your personal enjoyment. 14:53.170 --> 14:56.610 You have the right to create it for everybody's enjoyment. 14:57.250 --> 14:59.530 All right. 14:59.530 --> 15:05.430 Section 4 is the share alike, also popularly known as copy left. 15:06.570 --> 15:16.110 And there are two different sections, protections for both collective and derivative works, and protections just for collective and just for derivative works. 15:17.490 --> 15:36.010 So basically, share alike or copy left, if you don't know, it requires the creator of a collective or derivative work to also place their work under the Creative Commons license so the license gets perpetuated down the line, and so that the work will always be in the Creative Commons and everybody can always enjoy it. 15:37.510 --> 16:01.430 Now, you have to include a copy of the Creative Commons license, or at least a pointer to it, and you may not sub-license the work, which is a short quote, which basically means that you're not allowed... it means several things legally, but basically it means that you're not allowed to license only part of the work or license it for a limited time. 16:01.430 --> 16:03.950 You have to use the entire Creative Commons license. 16:03.950 --> 16:06.910 You can't change the license. 16:07.090 --> 16:10.070 You can't limit the license in any way. 16:10.070 --> 16:15.130 And there are restrictions on adding additional copy protection. 16:15.230 --> 16:22.270 You're not allowed to add additional copy protections to works you create if you're utilizing Creative Commons content. 16:22.890 --> 16:37.950 So, for example, if your original work was something in MP3, which is pretty widely usable, you're not allowed to then create a derivative work and place it in, like, a proprietary player with additional copy protection. 16:37.950 --> 16:49.990 You have to keep the amount of copy protection, or presumably lessen it, in a collective or derivative work, which is a nice touch so that we're not all stuck in DMCA problems. 16:52.730 --> 16:55.610 All right, protections just for collective works. 16:55.610 --> 16:59.170 And this is a pretty cool protection that the Creative Commons has provided. 17:00.850 --> 17:07.250 All right, if someone is using your work in a collective work, you can request that they remove the attribution. 17:07.250 --> 17:11.230 Now, attribution is normally required, but you can request they remove it. 17:11.230 --> 17:16.990 So, for example, say, like, the RIAA decides to use your work, which they could. 17:16.990 --> 17:18.250 Anybody can use it. 17:18.250 --> 17:24.710 And there's your name plastered big and bold as the creator of this work right up next to the RIAA who are distributing it. 17:24.710 --> 17:28.270 And you decide, you know, I really don't need that. 17:29.230 --> 17:34.970 You can request that they remove your name from your work, and it'll just be anonymous from that point on. 17:36.650 --> 17:41.490 The only caveat to this is the request has to be reasonable. 17:42.050 --> 17:48.670 So, say they print 1,000 copies of a book with your work in it, and they distributed it to bookstores across the country. 17:48.670 --> 17:53.170 You can't call them up and make them recall all the books from the bookstore and destroy them. 17:53.330 --> 17:58.290 You can, however, require them not to put your name on the work from that point forward. 18:01.310 --> 18:03.290 All right, protections just for derivative. 18:04.470 --> 18:08.170 The distributor can pick a substantially similar license. 18:08.490 --> 18:14.530 Now, what this means is there are key elements to Creative Commons licenses, the ones you choose when you pick your license. 18:14.530 --> 18:18.550 Like, today we're doing attribution, noncommercial, share alike. 18:18.750 --> 18:24.590 As long as you keep those main elements, you can change the country that the license applies to. 18:25.010 --> 18:30.110 So, let's say someone takes your music that was licensed under Creative Commons, someone in the UK. 18:30.110 --> 18:36.510 They're allowed to change it from the US license to the UK license, as long as they keep those main elements. 18:37.390 --> 18:45.310 And so, I mean, all the smart lawyers at the Creative Commons, I'm sure, are trying very hard to make the licenses as similar as possible, country to country. 18:45.530 --> 18:49.190 So, this is one of those places where we trust the Creative Commons that they're doing that. 18:49.250 --> 18:50.350 And I'm sure they are. 18:51.370 --> 18:58.450 So, just, if you have content out there, and you see the license has changed to a different country, don't be worried. 18:58.450 --> 19:00.350 This is perfectly acceptable. 19:02.650 --> 19:06.230 All right, 4C, noncommercial use. 19:07.570 --> 19:11.410 I have to admit, this is the one part of the license that is kind of bizarre. 19:11.770 --> 19:15.150 Because here's the quote for the noncommercial use clause. 19:15.150 --> 19:27.230 A noncommercial use means you cannot use the work, quote, in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. 19:27.230 --> 19:32.050 And the first couple times I read that, I thought, what the hell does that mean? 19:32.850 --> 19:37.730 And then the second thing I thought was, you know, I could make a lot of money litigating about this pretty easily. 19:38.910 --> 19:44.350 Because, I mean, terms like primarily intended commercial advantage, these are very squishy terms. 19:44.350 --> 19:45.910 They're not very exact. 19:45.910 --> 19:52.010 And these are the kind of terms that lawyers argue about and spend tons of money arguing about all the time. 19:52.010 --> 19:58.830 And I actually had a chance to talk to Wendy Seltzer from the EFF about this clause because I was mystified by it. 19:59.070 --> 20:06.250 And she said they wanted to have a little bit of a wider clause to catch more commercial uses in this. 20:06.650 --> 20:11.950 And, which is a good thing, however, at the expense of certainty. 20:12.670 --> 20:17.790 So, what's primarily intended, what's commercial advantage, I can't tell you. 20:21.090 --> 20:22.050 Yes. 20:22.970 --> 20:29.770 One example I could think of was, say Amazon decides to print up Creative Commons works and sell them on their website. 20:29.770 --> 20:34.310 But they sell them at cost, so they're not making any money off the work. 20:34.390 --> 20:41.250 However, then they start to advertise, hey, we're the only place on the internet you can come and get printed versions of Creative Commons works. 20:41.250 --> 20:42.170 Aren't we great? 20:42.170 --> 20:44.270 You should come visit Amazon.com. 20:44.270 --> 20:47.150 That would probably be commercial advantage. 20:47.150 --> 20:55.250 Because they're gaining reputation, they're spending advertising, getting PR from it. 20:56.390 --> 21:01.030 Now, there's a special exception for file sharing and P2P applications. 21:01.030 --> 21:13.930 If anybody's followed the Grokster case that was in the Supreme Court, one of the things the Supreme Court didn't really like about Grokster is that it had banner ads next to people's copyrighted content. 21:13.930 --> 21:19.470 And so they said that Grokster was profiting from everybody's content because they had these banner ads. 21:19.470 --> 21:24.190 And the more users they had on their service, the more money they made off the ads. 21:24.670 --> 21:34.950 The Creative Commons says that, by definition, file sharing and P2P applications do not gain commercial advantage from distributing Creative Commons works. 21:35.710 --> 21:41.150 So your Creative Commons works can always be distributed across file sharing applications, and there's never a problem with that. 21:44.150 --> 21:51.530 This is the attribution clause and what's required to properly attribute someone under the Creative Commons. 21:51.790 --> 21:56.470 So if you're a user of content, you want to take special note of these, obviously. 21:56.730 --> 22:05.590 Because if you don't attribute someone properly, theoretically you could get sued or you are at least in breach of the contract. 22:05.650 --> 22:09.850 And breach is the fancy lawyer word for you're not following the contract and could get sued. 22:09.850 --> 22:20.410 So you have to include the notice that's under the Creative Commons, the name of the original author or their pseudonym if they don't have a real name. 22:20.410 --> 22:24.050 It explicitly states that the pseudonyms work fine. 22:24.390 --> 22:27.970 The title of the work and a pointer to the work if there is one. 22:28.730 --> 22:37.410 Now for derivative works, they require special credit, such as based on the original novel by so-and-so, based on the original song by so-and-so. 22:37.410 --> 22:43.310 So as long as you do all of these things, when you reuse a work, you should be in the clear. 22:45.930 --> 22:50.890 All right, this is actually more bizarre than the commercial advantage stuff. 22:51.810 --> 22:55.130 And I think this just got added in a recent version of the license. 22:55.690 --> 22:58.770 There's a section purely for music royalties. 22:59.010 --> 23:05.310 And it reserves the right of the content creator to collect royalties if there's a commercial performance. 23:05.310 --> 23:11.870 However, if you remember, we already said this is a royalty-free license, and you're not allowed to use it commercially. 23:13.030 --> 23:22.330 So now there's a section basically saying, if you break your promise to use it commercially, I can break my promise to not require royalties, but only for music. 23:28.280 --> 23:29.240 No. 23:29.840 --> 23:31.380 Audio recordings. 23:34.720 --> 23:36.440 Printed work is not covered. 23:41.550 --> 23:42.830 Probably not. 23:42.830 --> 23:53.550 He was asking if he creates a work, if there's a printed work as the original work, he creates a spoken word version, is that under the music royalty section? 23:53.790 --> 23:55.010 And I don't think so. 23:55.470 --> 23:56.850 If he sings it. 23:57.390 --> 24:01.950 No, I think it's based on what the original work is, and if the original work is music or not. 24:03.490 --> 24:06.850 And this is totally bizarre, and I don't understand this section at all. 24:06.850 --> 24:15.490 Because when we go on later, you'll see that once someone breaches the non-commercial use section, they're pretty screwed. 24:15.910 --> 24:27.910 And so the only thing I could think of for why this section is now in the license is to give judges a clue as to how to define damages when someone gets sued for commercially performing music. 24:28.110 --> 24:29.570 That's the only thing I could come up with. 24:29.570 --> 24:32.930 Otherwise, this clause seems sort of out of place. 24:32.930 --> 24:39.550 So that just goes to show you, even law students who have studied this thing for months can't figure this crap out half the time. 24:41.810 --> 24:45.290 All right, next section we have, the warranty disclaimer. 24:46.390 --> 24:52.730 Now, this isn't as big a deal for people who do creative works like writings, photography, music. 24:52.890 --> 24:54.650 This is a much bigger deal for coders. 24:54.650 --> 24:58.490 Coders should be much more worried about warranties than they are. 24:58.610 --> 25:00.110 But that's a different talk. 25:01.250 --> 25:09.130 Basically, under state law, states place, in a way, they place language into every contract. 25:09.930 --> 25:12.130 And these are called implied warranties. 25:12.750 --> 25:19.510 Basically saying that your work is not... easier examples are for coders, so I'm going to do one. 25:19.950 --> 25:27.070 An implied warranty for programming would be that your work's not going to format someone's hard drive or destroy their computer if they use it. 25:27.070 --> 25:32.270 Because there's an implied warranty that it actually does what it says it does and won't screw someone over. 25:33.110 --> 25:38.190 However, for content creators, it's kind of like, eh, I don't know, what's a photograph going to do to you? 25:38.450 --> 25:39.850 Do to your computer? 25:40.070 --> 25:45.650 The big one is the non-infringement clause, which basically says, here's this content I made. 25:45.650 --> 25:50.510 I'm making no guarantees that it's not infringing on someone else's content. 25:50.510 --> 25:52.450 And don't come sue me if it is. 25:52.450 --> 26:00.250 The problem with all this is that some states do not allow you to waive these warranties. 26:00.790 --> 26:04.670 This section attempts to do that, but not all states allow that. 26:04.690 --> 26:10.990 And this is a purely state-by-state thing, and I cannot give you guidance about what your state does with implied warranties. 26:11.150 --> 26:15.010 This is something, if you're concerned about it, that you need to talk to a lawyer. 26:15.110 --> 26:17.970 But for most content users, it's mostly not a big deal. 26:18.390 --> 26:20.070 Content creators, excuse me. 26:20.790 --> 26:23.350 Section 6 is very similar. 26:23.470 --> 26:25.370 It's the limit on liability. 26:25.610 --> 26:32.250 Basically attempting to shield the original creator from lawsuits based on their work. 26:35.690 --> 26:46.530 And once again, this very state-by-state is under the same category as the attempted waiver of warranty in the previous section. 26:46.530 --> 26:47.990 This is another thing. 26:47.990 --> 26:53.970 If you're worried about possible liability because of your work, you should probably go talk to a lawyer. 26:54.610 --> 27:00.250 I would say 99% of us who have blogs with our rants and photos don't really care. 27:00.250 --> 27:01.510 No one's going to sue us. 27:01.510 --> 27:08.270 But if you have more controversial work, if your work might be found obscene, for example, this might be a problem. 27:08.730 --> 27:11.270 And if you're a coder, like I said, you should be worried. 27:11.270 --> 27:15.570 All right. 27:15.570 --> 27:16.650 Section 7. 27:16.650 --> 27:20.590 What happens when somebody violates the license or breaches the license? 27:21.590 --> 27:26.690 Any breach by the content users immediately ends the license. 27:26.850 --> 27:29.590 Immediate, instant license is over. 27:30.210 --> 27:36.630 And this is a pretty cool protection because, you know, you're out there offering your work to people on the Internet. 27:36.630 --> 27:38.730 You don't know who's downloading the work. 27:38.730 --> 27:40.770 You don't know who's using the work. 27:40.770 --> 27:45.530 You probably will never even know who's redistributing it or creating derivative works. 27:45.730 --> 27:57.530 So it would be a pain in the ass if there was a requirement that you go find that person if they're in breach, go find them and tell them to stop using your work or tell them that you're going to sue them, have a cease and desist. 27:57.830 --> 27:59.190 None of that is required. 27:59.190 --> 28:03.410 The license terminates instantly if the content user breaches. 28:03.410 --> 28:04.270 Yeah. 28:14.120 --> 28:15.160 Yeah. 28:15.500 --> 28:16.540 Okay. 28:49.760 --> 28:53.000 So basically there's a chain of licenses, you're saying. 28:57.580 --> 28:58.960 Oh, I see. 28:58.960 --> 29:04.260 So they're saying, like, my example before, you can request your attribution be removed. 29:04.300 --> 29:15.320 And you're asking if someone then uses the work where the attribution has been removed, they don't know who you are, can you then, are they in breach for not attributing you? 29:22.590 --> 29:23.470 Right. 29:29.730 --> 29:31.070 That's a good question. 29:31.070 --> 29:32.850 I don't have a good answer right now. 29:34.750 --> 29:44.950 I'm not sure because resharing derivatives many times, derivative works many times is one of the really hard questions about copyleft in general. 29:45.350 --> 29:48.170 And I'm not going to attempt to solve it right now. 29:51.460 --> 29:53.140 All right. 29:53.340 --> 30:04.380 And as it says here, the only sections of the license that don't end when someone breaches are sections 5 and 6, the ones limiting warranties and liabilities. 30:04.380 --> 30:13.140 So you're still protected from being sued, however, the content user no longer has any rights and it reverts back to federal copyright controls. 30:13.140 --> 30:19.960 Which means they have very little rights and if they're creating a derivative work, they're probably screwed under federal copyright. 30:23.280 --> 30:24.340 All right. 30:24.340 --> 30:29.300 What happens when you want to revoke the license, you want to take your work back out of the creative commons? 30:29.660 --> 30:31.600 And the short answer is you can't. 30:31.900 --> 30:34.360 Because remember we said the license is perpetual. 30:34.700 --> 30:42.700 And you'll see in some upcoming sections that there's even bigger issues for the content creator if they want to remove their content from creative commons. 30:42.700 --> 30:46.940 The long version is you could create a fork in your content. 30:47.880 --> 30:51.040 Which is an easy concept in the coder world. 30:51.040 --> 30:54.020 It's kind of a bizarre concept in the content world. 30:54.720 --> 31:02.760 Basically, since you can't revoke anybody who's already downloaded your picture or whatever and is reusing it, you can't tell them to stop. 31:03.820 --> 31:07.040 They retain that license as long as they want to. 31:07.040 --> 31:08.220 It's perpetual. 31:08.220 --> 31:13.560 You can remove the offer of the contract for future people. 31:13.620 --> 31:16.740 So future users can't download that picture under creative commons. 31:16.740 --> 31:20.540 But those people who already have a license will retain the license. 31:20.600 --> 31:25.340 So then you have two versions, potentially, of the exact same content. 31:26.000 --> 31:28.560 Existing under different licensing arrangements. 31:30.680 --> 31:32.460 The exact same content. 31:33.120 --> 31:37.140 If it's a photograph, for example, it could be exactly the same. 31:37.140 --> 31:40.640 But the people who already have a license, you can't take it back from them. 31:40.760 --> 31:43.920 Or you can, but then you'd be in breach and you could get sued instead. 31:57.120 --> 32:00.320 He asked what the evidentiary requirement is. 32:00.320 --> 32:02.960 And I'm not a lawyer, and I can't tell you. 32:04.140 --> 32:07.200 And it will depend on the state. 32:07.520 --> 32:09.340 And I couldn't tell you even if I knew. 32:09.700 --> 32:11.300 Because that would be legal advice. 32:11.300 --> 32:12.460 All right 32:20.640 --> 32:29.880 , here's the reason why the content creator is in some trouble if they want to remove their license from the creative commons. 32:30.280 --> 32:46.140 The creative commons has language where basically, if you're the content creator and you're licensing it under creative commons, you promise with this contract to relicense it every time a content user wants you to. 32:46.140 --> 32:51.820 Every time they're redistributing or performing the work, you are automatically renewing their license. 32:52.080 --> 32:58.420 And I'm under the impression this is some legal footwork to get around rules about perpetuity. 32:58.420 --> 33:00.740 Are you a law student? 33:01.560 --> 33:02.720 No, not anymore. 33:02.720 --> 33:03.460 Okay. 33:03.720 --> 33:10.160 But yeah, there's rules against perpetuity, which are extremely complicated and I don't want to talk about. 33:11.320 --> 33:19.380 But basically, this gets around it by, the content creator regrants the license every time the content user needs one. 33:20.100 --> 33:24.800 And so that's why the content creator is going to be put in breach if they stop regranting the license. 33:29.160 --> 33:31.140 This is the severability clause. 33:31.140 --> 33:38.100 It basically says that if one part of the creative commons license is found to be void, the rest of the contract will still be valid. 33:38.580 --> 33:47.560 So we talked earlier about those warranty and liability sections and how those vary state by state and they may not be valid in your state. 33:47.800 --> 34:02.100 This is saying that if some judge says, hey, those warranty sections are no good, I'm going to strike those out of the creative commons license in this situation, the rest of the contract will live on and continue to operate. 34:02.100 --> 34:06.020 You'll continue to have your protections and be able to use the work. 34:07.300 --> 34:10.920 And so that's a pretty cool protection from the creative commons people. 34:10.920 --> 34:12.540 This is not a required thing. 34:12.540 --> 34:17.720 There's many contracts where as soon as one section is found void, the whole thing is found void. 34:18.720 --> 34:24.310 All right, section 8D, waiver. 34:25.650 --> 34:30.310 So waiver is knowingly giving up a right that you have under a contract. 34:31.590 --> 34:36.030 Waiver basically can completely remove a section of the contract. 34:36.030 --> 34:43.210 It cannot modify or add to the creative commons license, but you can completely remove a section by waiving it. 34:44.030 --> 34:46.790 And this is not something you generally want to do. 34:47.290 --> 34:50.730 And the creative commons has made it exceptionally hard for you to do it. 34:51.210 --> 34:56.590 Your waiver must be in writing, and it must be physically signed by both parties. 34:57.650 --> 35:01.710 Now under normal law, you can waive things by accident. 35:02.270 --> 35:03.910 And this happens all the time. 35:04.410 --> 35:12.750 The creative commons is helping protect you by making sure you really want to remove part of the licensing agreement before you actually do it. 35:13.530 --> 35:22.070 So for example, if someone comes to you, a company comes to you and says, hey, we love your work, it's really great, but we want to use it commercially. 35:22.710 --> 35:28.490 But we're willing to abide by the other terms of the license, but we need to use it commercially, we want to make some money off your content. 35:28.650 --> 35:30.830 This is the way you could theoretically do that. 35:30.830 --> 35:39.710 You could waive the non-commercial use clause using waiver, and allow them to use it commercially, make an exception to the licensing agreement. 35:39.710 --> 35:41.410 But you don't want to do this normally. 35:47.270 --> 35:52.870 The exception is just for the one company, the person who's signing the agreement. 35:52.870 --> 35:54.470 It's only valid for them. 36:00.560 --> 36:01.480 What was that? 36:05.820 --> 36:06.780 Yeah? 36:13.150 --> 36:14.130 All right. 36:14.130 --> 36:20.230 And finally, at the end of the creative commons license, there's a little part that says, please, oh please, don't sue us. 36:21.670 --> 36:32.390 Basically, the creative commons, they're saying, they created this license for you, they created this license for us all to use, so that we can distribute our content more openly, so that people can reuse it. 36:32.390 --> 36:35.150 But it's not their fault if something goes bad. 36:35.750 --> 36:39.350 And even if it is, even if you think it is, please don't sue the creative commons. 36:39.350 --> 36:40.350 They're nice people. 36:44.190 --> 36:45.330 Thank you, EFF. 36:47.250 --> 36:48.170 All right. 36:48.170 --> 36:52.850 So, let's talk about how to maximize your protection under the creative commons license. 36:52.850 --> 36:58.170 There's only two things, well, not only, but there's two things that are really important for you to know. 36:58.470 --> 37:06.570 You need to make sure the content users are bound to the license, and make sure content users know what content is covered by the license. 37:07.110 --> 37:07.550 All right. 37:07.550 --> 37:12.710 First, how do you make sure content users are bound to the license? 37:15.170 --> 37:20.090 And the answer is, make sure they can read the contract. 37:20.490 --> 37:24.050 Not make sure they do read it, make sure they can read it. 37:24.270 --> 37:33.510 That's why we've all seen those obnoxious pop-ups that happen right after we install software, the EULA that pops up in a really obnoxious window, you have to click I accept. 37:33.850 --> 37:39.450 Because the commercial companies are making sure that you have an opportunity to read the contract. 37:39.450 --> 37:49.290 Under the law, as long as you have an opportunity to read the contract, you are legally assumed to have read the contract. 37:49.530 --> 37:54.750 And even if you didn't, no court will ever accept the excuse of I didn't read the contract. 37:54.750 --> 37:56.170 Ever, ever, ever. 37:56.710 --> 38:04.130 If you only learn one thing from the talk, it should be that not reading a contract won't help you. 38:04.290 --> 38:06.310 In fact, it'll probably hurt you. 38:06.310 --> 38:11.370 So you just have to make sure that people have an opportunity to read the license. 38:11.590 --> 38:18.570 Don't put the copyright notice at the bottom of the page in six-point font saying this page covered by Creative Commons. 38:18.950 --> 38:27.270 You don't want to hide it away, at least have the little Creative Commons icon near your navigation like most people have that says some rights reserved. 38:27.810 --> 38:29.190 That should be enough. 38:29.230 --> 38:32.310 But don't hide it away, put it in a prominent place. 38:34.250 --> 38:39.670 The next part is make sure you let everybody know what part of your site is covered. 38:40.270 --> 38:47.190 A lot of sites I see just have the little Creative Commons icon saying this site covered by Creative Commons, some rights reserved. 38:47.190 --> 38:50.850 But it's not always clear exactly what content they mean. 38:51.050 --> 38:56.150 If you have a mix of text and pictures, is the text cover not the pictures? 38:56.150 --> 38:57.950 Are they both under Creative Commons? 38:58.170 --> 39:00.710 Is your site design covered by Creative Commons? 39:00.710 --> 39:02.310 Is your site logo covered? 39:02.310 --> 39:04.370 Is your CSS file covered? 39:04.870 --> 39:06.170 Who knows? 39:07.150 --> 39:13.750 So the important part is clearly tell people what parts are covered by the license. 39:14.230 --> 39:25.530 Just put a little line before the icon that says all text on the site covered by the Creative Commons or all pictures on the site covered by Creative Commons or all content, right? 39:25.530 --> 39:27.870 If you do that, you'll be way ahead of the game. 39:27.870 --> 39:34.910 And it really makes it easier for content users so they know which content they can use and which they can't. 39:35.270 --> 39:43.330 And please put a copyright or Creative Commons notice on every page that you want to release under the Creative Commons. 39:43.470 --> 39:52.410 Someone might deep-link to your site and someone coming to your site may not be aware that this deep-linked page with no icon is covered under the Creative Commons. 39:52.830 --> 39:55.790 So to be safe, put the icon on every page. 39:57.930 --> 39:58.890 Okay. 39:59.850 --> 40:08.770 Now, I've talked a lot about people getting sued and bad things that might happen to you if you don't follow the license correctly. 40:09.070 --> 40:18.650 But, I mean, 99% of the time, all the content put under the license or all the content that you use under the license, all those transactions will go just fine. 40:18.650 --> 40:20.490 You shouldn't have to worry too much. 40:20.690 --> 40:23.750 But the important part is to understand your rights. 40:23.750 --> 40:28.310 Understand what you can and can't do under the license to protect yourself. 40:28.590 --> 40:30.350 I mean, you really are giving up your rights here. 40:30.350 --> 40:34.410 You're giving up your copyrights to the community, so you should know what you're doing. 40:34.990 --> 40:38.050 And if you feel unsure, like I said, contact a lawyer. 40:38.410 --> 40:44.090 I know a lot of people can't afford a lawyer, but there are free legal services available. 40:44.590 --> 40:48.930 If you go to almost any law school, you can probably get some sort of free legal advice. 40:49.070 --> 40:57.150 I know in New York, where I live, there's Lawyers for the Arts who give free legal advice to artists, and this would be right up their alley. 40:57.390 --> 41:00.350 So there are options for you if you do have legal concerns. 41:01.990 --> 41:05.870 Before I take more questions, let me put this up. 41:05.950 --> 41:12.030 If you want to learn more about copyright or licensing agreements, here are some really good sites. 41:12.370 --> 41:12.710 The U.S. 41:12.710 --> 41:15.310 Copyright Office, obvious one. 41:15.430 --> 41:17.410 The Creative Commons site itself. 41:17.470 --> 41:22.470 The EFF has a really great new Blogger's Law Guide that they released just recently. 41:22.990 --> 41:28.730 And if you haven't already, I encourage you to go out to the EFF dunk tank and contribute to the EFF. 41:29.710 --> 41:34.670 North Carolina State has a nice little tutorial that I Googled up and found. 41:35.850 --> 41:42.430 And it's mostly about how to avoid infringing copyrights, because this is university students, so there's an audience for this. 41:42.530 --> 41:44.850 They're mostly worried about people ripping off music. 41:44.890 --> 41:46.790 But it's a good overall tutorial. 41:47.070 --> 41:54.670 And finally, if you have access to Lexis or Westlaw, this is a really great article about the GPL and whether it's enforceable. 41:57.810 --> 42:07.270 And the biggest issue in enforceability of the GPL is not any of the legal language, or at least this author says, it's not any of the legal language of the GPL. 42:07.270 --> 42:11.430 It's the fact that users don't know that it's covered under the GPL. 42:11.730 --> 42:17.990 Coders will just throw the license in some subdirectory called license.txt and not ever tell anybody that it's covered by the GPL. 42:17.990 --> 42:19.690 And that's a really huge problem. 42:20.350 --> 42:34.430 But this article goes through 10 commonly asked questions about the GPL, 10 threats to the GPL, and in the end finds that the GPL will probably be enforced by a court whenever the ultimate challenge to the GPL comes. 42:34.430 --> 42:35.850 So it's a really great article. 42:37.190 --> 42:38.250 All right, that's my bit. 42:38.250 --> 42:44.170 And if you have any more questions, I think we have 5-10 minutes for questions. 42:45.070 --> 42:49.650 Preferably related to the Creative Commons licensing and not to general copyright issues. 42:50.130 --> 42:51.870 I may run out of knowledge. 42:58.010 --> 43:01.790 The next talk after this is the revolution will not be copyrighted. 43:01.790 --> 43:02.670 Is that right? 43:02.770 --> 43:04.670 And there's your speakers right there. 43:06.950 --> 43:09.410 Any questions about the Creative Commons? 43:34.720 --> 43:37.840 If they put it under the Creative Commons license originally? 43:39.960 --> 43:43.760 Probably not because you're acting as the agent of the copyright owner. 43:43.760 --> 43:45.920 And they can always do whatever they want with it. 43:46.940 --> 43:54.000 Like I said, the people who already downloaded their image under the Creative Commons license would still be allowed to use it. 43:54.080 --> 44:04.480 But if the user of your service changes their minds, I don't see a big problem because you're only acting on their orders and they still retain their full copyright control. 44:16.200 --> 44:18.740 How does it compare to normal copyright protections? 44:18.740 --> 44:20.020 How does it compare? 44:22.280 --> 44:26.280 Why would you do Creative Commons instead of normal copyright protection? 44:27.840 --> 44:34.120 Every time someone wanted to use your content, you'd have to specifically grant each user a license to do so. 44:34.120 --> 44:37.600 And you'd basically have to write up your own agreement every time. 44:37.600 --> 44:40.860 Or find another alternative license to the Creative Commons. 44:42.480 --> 44:51.320 Creative Commons is mostly you put content on your website you invite everybody to come use your content for whatever purposes they like. 44:51.520 --> 44:57.380 Under normal copyright law, they can only use fair use, which is a limited use. 44:57.380 --> 44:59.700 This allows full reuse of your content. 45:00.620 --> 45:02.380 Does that answer your question? 45:02.420 --> 45:03.220 Sort of? 45:18.780 --> 45:21.220 Are there any further questions? 45:21.360 --> 45:24.000 If not, I will shuffle off stage left. 45:25.420 --> 45:27.020 Alright, thank you everybody. 45:28.800 --> 45:31.880 And stay tuned for The Revolution will not be copyrighted up next.