Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that was started in order to increase the number of creative works that are available for others to reuse and share. It is a subset of copyright that replaces the usual “all rights reserved” mindset of standard copyright with “some rights reserved”.
The Creative Commons licenses are standardized with a simple set of license options, so that creators can allow others to use their works on a non-commercial basis in specific ways. This replaces the typical individual commercial license negotiation basis of standard copyright. Please read “Creative Commons, Copyleft, and Other Licenses” from the University of Pittsburgh Library System for a basic overview of the licenses.
Attribution at least is necessary for all types of Creative Commons licenses, except for Creative Commons 0 or public domain equivalent. Creative Commons 0 is a legal tool for relinquishing as many copyright restrictions as possible to the public. The Public Domain Mark, symbolized in Unicode as “Circled C with Overlaid Backslash”, is also public domain equivalent, but may signify works that have fallen into the public domain through loss of copyright. It is good form, though, to note any material that you did not create yourself in the credits of your film.
The most open of the licenses are the Attribution license (CC-BY) and the Attribution-ShareAlike license (CC-BY-SA). The Attribution license requires only attribution, however, you do need to do the full attribution in a specific way (please see the “Best Practices for Attribution” article for more information). The Attribution Share-Alike license requires that anyone who uses that license has to also license their work as Attribution Share-Alike (and so, not as a fully copyrighted work).
The other two license types, Attribution-NonCommercial and Attribution-NoDerivatives, would be difficult for independent filmmakers to use without running into trouble. The Attribution-NonCommercial license would prohibit making any money off of your film, and likely would also prohibit monetizing on a platform like YouTube. The Attribution-NoDerivatives license explicitly prohibits using part of the licensed work in another creative work.
Before you use Creative Commons licensed material in your film, it would be a good idea to go over the “Considerations for licensees” from the Creative Commons Wiki. Particularly, make sure to read the legal code around the license of the material that you are using, make sure that the license gives you free rein to do what you have in mind, and make sure that the whole portion of the material that you intend to use has Creative Commons licensing.
If you have any questions about licensing of a particular work, say, you really want to use an Attribution-NonCommercial work in a commercial project, you could contact the owner of the work and request permission or work out a commercial contract of some sort. The documents “Choosing a Creative Commons License” from New Media Rights and “Are There Other Good Reasons to Read Licenses Carefully?” from attorneys Jake Levy & Neil Rosini give some examples and alternate scenarios that could be helpful in determining what types of licenses will work with your film.
It should be noted that Creative Commons material is still bound by personality rights, and that personality rights are also held by non-celebrities. In 2007, Virgin Mobile Australia ran a bus stop advertising campaign for its mobile text messaging service using Flickr photos under the Creative Commons Attribution license. One of the photos depicted the then-15-year-old Alison Chang at a church car wash with the slogan “Dump Your Pen Friend”. She subsequently sued Virgin Mobile. Although they had upheld the requirements of the Creative Commons Attribution license with a link to the profile of the Flickr account, they had not specifically requested her permission to use her image in an advertising campaign. Although she ultimately lost the case, it does show where filmmakers need to be careful in using Creative Commons material. It is possible that this may even hold true with recognizable photos or videos that have been dedicated to the public domain.
Also, if your film will be distributed internationally, you should be aware of any differences in the law of any other countries that you will be distributing your film to. Please see “Creative Commons – Answers to Common IP Questions for the Independent Documentary Filmmaker” from the Center for Media and Social Impact for more information.
Some filmmakers do license their own material as Creative Commons, but you should know the licenses exhaustively before you decide to do that. One of the primary things to remember when putting a Creative Commons license on your work is that the license cannot be revoked. Please see “Considerations for Licensors” from Creative Commons for details. And, just to make this crystal clear, Creative Commons attribution does not give your film the same protections as actually claiming full copyright protections for your film. See the document “Filmmaker” on the CC Wiki for more information. And see the page “Copyrighting Your Work” on this site for how to officially copyright your work through the U.S. Copyright Office.
If you have any questions about use, you can clarify with the party sharing the material or consult with an intellectual property or entertainment lawyer.
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