Licencing and copy rights . Commons Deed

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

During the time I have been on this forum I have seen numerous posts about copy rights . Is royalty free really free? What is legal? etc etc.
For those small business owners making shows, templates or styles , they all like to protect their work, but they usually don't have the financial means to hire attorneys, so they have to trust on people's common sense. However, many people don't quite understand what is considered right and what is wrong, so I went looking for some simple solution and I found this website where everyone can find written rights to be used with their work.
Hope this will be something many of us will be able to utilize

http://creativecommons.org/choose/

With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify here. For those new to Creative Commons licensing, we've prepared a list of things to think about. If you want to offer your work with no conditions or you want to certify a work as public domain, choose one of our public domain tools. Commons Deed is not a license. It is simply a handy reference for understanding the Legal Code (the full license) — it is a human-readable expression of some of its key terms. Think of it as the user-friendly interface to the Legal Code beneath. This Deed itself has no legal value, and its contents do not appear in the actual license.
Creative Commons is not a law firm and does not provide legal services. Distributing of, displaying of, or linking to this Commons Deed does not create an attorney-client relationship.

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Anita,
I don't think that I understand your post. Why are you referring to styles and templates?
Are you talking about free styles and templates? or are you referring to the styles sold by Photodex and by us, the 3rd party vendors?

With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify here.

This is certainly NOT the case of Photodex styles, nor that of any of the other vendors of styles/templates.

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

There are various terms you can apply to a Creative Commons license--some generous, some very restrictive--but in the end, it doesn't protect a single person from theft. I had some private communication with one of the people who administers the site, and he told me that if you want stronger protection, the only true way to go is to register with the government copyright office. That also doesn't protect you from theft, of course. It only gives you a leg to stand on in court if you decide to go the very expensive route of suing someone for copyright infringement.

Barbara

[becky_calif Profile Private message]

What I saw on the website was all kinds of licenses as Barbara mentioned, you pick the most fitting and attach the written agreements. I would think it would be a positive for designers and serve as a reminder to those purchasing your products as to what you expect. I see this as just common sense rules reminders. It wasn't all that long ago that someone on this forum was selling his renderings of Digital Juice products and naming them his style collections. When confronted on the copyright violations he was selling, he replaced those "Juice" styles with renderings of Particle Illusion products.

[trulytango Profile Private message]

Hi there

I read each of the licenses available through Creative Commons - see the list and short explanations below:

http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses

As a small-time creator of styles/graphics for sale, why would I opt for any of these particular licenses? Already, people see the phrase 'Creative Commons' and automatically think it is OK to share with others! Why, even the most restrictive of the CC licenses states that it 'allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you'!

However, as a issuer of FREEBIES (now and again) - maybe a CC license is one way of harnessing free advertising. Provided, of course, that the person in possession of the download applies common sense and appreciation?

Iris

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Iris, you must have created a firestorm because, for the moment anyway, the entire site won't load. A creatively common problem, oh yes indeed.

But I could swear they have far more restrictive licenses too. Can't prove it, of course, because you made their site crash, you wicked woman.

Barbara

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

Why, even the most restrictive of the CC licenses states that it 'allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you'!
Iris

That's exactly what I meant in my first post.
None of the CC licenses applies to what we sell. Sharing of our styles/templates is not allowed, in any way.
People can sell/share the shows that they make, but they most certainly cannot share the tools with which the shows have been created.
So, I don't understand this thread at all.

[anitaemile Profile Private messageWebsite]

Mona

Well , I used this for the music from Dean, and did not look any further than what I needed . So forgive me for not going into depth . I thought there would be more than just the options I found on their first page. Mea culpa..
Just trying to get some people a tool to use for whatever they are trying to sell it was

[debngar Profile Private message]

Hi there

I read each of the licenses available through Creative Commons - see the list and short explanations below:

http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses

As a small-time creator of styles/graphics for sale, why would I opt for any of these particular licenses? Already, people see the phrase 'Creative Commons' and automatically think it is OK to share with others! Why, even the most restrictive of the CC licenses states that it 'allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you'!

However, as a issuer of FREEBIES (now and again) - maybe a CC license is one way of harnessing free advertising. Provided, of course, that the person in possession of the download applies common sense and appreciation?

Iris

I would wonder about people equating the CC license on the freebies and assuming those TOU applied to the rest of your works as well. It seems fairly evident there isn't enough awareness about this by the repeated questions posed about music use in the forum for instance. Too often people assume once they buy something (that has limited TOU) they can do anything they want with it. Sigh.....

It might be useful if one can track the results of the "free advertising" somehow, else what good is it if all they're doing is passing around the stuff and never come back to purchase? I would bet much of the "free" stuff gets put on torrent sites where members there pay a fee to share the stuff on that kind of site. So, in essence, they are collecting a fee for our "freebies" which is irritating unless there is another way to be compensated for them before that happens.