Interest in Creative Commons licenses comes as artists, authors and traditional media companies begin to warm to the idea of the Internet as friend instead of foe and race to capitalize on technologies such as file-sharing and digital copying.

The licenses are the brainchild of online theorist Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor.

Lessig argues that the current system of copyright laws provides little flexibility -- either you give up all permissions for use of your work or you withhold everything. He proposed a solution: a set of copyright licenses that would allow artists to choose to keep "some rights reserved" rather than "all rights reserved."

They could, for instance, choose to allow their works to be enjoyed and copied by others for any purpose, restrict such activity to non-commercial use or allow use of portions of the work rather than all of it. To that end, Lessig co-founded the nonprofit Creative Commons, whose aim, as he describes it, is to "help artists and authors give others the freedom to build upon their creativity -- without calling a lawyer first."

What began as an offbeat legal experiment is now prompting people to reconsider the notion of copyright.

"What we're doing is not only good for society but it's good for us and our business because we get our music out," said Brian Hardgroove, 40, the co-founder of Fine Arts Militia and the band's bass player.

The way Lessig sees it, art has always been about stealing, recycling and mixing: Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin were said to borrow from each other's brushwork. The 1990s hit "Clueless" with Alicia Silverstone was a modern-day adaptation of Jane Austen's "Emma."

Technology has given the world an unprecedented ability to digitize works, copy them, take them apart and put them back together again. But Lessig said he worries that the extension of copyright laws is keeping many works out of the public domain, hampering creativity. When the Constitution was written, copyrights covered 14 years, extendable to 28 years. Now, with the passage of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998, these rights last until an author's death plus 70 years.

Lessig's goal with Creative Commons was to create a body of digital work, which he calls "artifacts of culture," for the public domain, accessible to all.

In the year since the licenses were unveiled, a steady stream of works beyond popular music and videos has joined the Creative Commons public domain archive: material for more than 500 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (news - web sites) classes, audio of every U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) argument since 1950 from the Public Library of Science, the archives for Flickr's photo-sharing site, and Cory Doctorow's futuristic novel "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom."

The book's first hardcover run was a sellout -- 10,000 copies in all -- in bookstores, but the number of free electronic copies distributed was much greater. Half a million copies of the science fiction novel were downloaded.

"There is this weird sense that the Internet is broken because it lets people make easy copies. . . . The Internet is a machine for making copies, and artists need to come to grips with that," Doctorow said.

Doctorow's experiment with his first novel went so well that he released his second one, "Eastern Standard Tribe," under a Creative Commons license and hopes to publish a third this spring the same way.

"At every turn in history we see this new model of distribution that people say is going to destroy art itself," Doctorow said. But, he said, such fears been proved wrong time and time again.

Fritz Attaway, Washington general counsel for the Motion Picture Association of America, said work licensed under Creative Commons licenses and those released under traditional copyright restrictions can coexist.

"I think it's helpful to educate consumers that there is a place like Creative Commons where one can access intellectual property that has been freely made available to the general public without compensation and that that should be distinguished from sites that are permitting access to infringing material," he said.

Still, even the most optimistic say that Creative Commons will be only part of the solution to ending the long-running battle over copyright. Attaway said he doubts the major movie studios or record labels would ever license large quantities of their work for distribution using Creative Commons licenses because they make plenty of money off the current system.

Hollywood producers Robert Greenwald and Jim Gilliam are among those challenging such assumptions. They released their movie "Outfoxed" under a Creative Commons license. Their controversial documentary accused Fox News of being a propaganda machine for the Republican Party. Just weeks after it was released in theaters, the producers posted 48 minutes of original interviews from the work online.

Gilliam credits the Internet with boosting interest in the movie because it reached a wider audience than it could in theaters alone. He said many of those who viewed parts of the work online ended up ordering a $9.95 DVD.

"This isn't necessarily just some altruistic thing," Gilliam said. "You can make money off of this, too."

It is not always easy for consumers to know when a work is protected by a Creative Commons license. If the work does not identify itself as such, online users can go to CreativeCommons.org and search its archives. In a few months, the developers behind the new Mozilla Firefox browser plan to release an update designed to allow people to search the Web for works of art licensed by Creative Commons.

John Buckman, an entrepreneur from Berkeley, Calif., has used the Creative Commons licenses as the foundation for his new online record label. All artists who sign with his company, Magnatune, must agree to allow free use of their work for non-commercial purposes. The site features 326 albums by 174 artists in six different genres, including classical and heavy metal. He said the company makes 50 percent of its money from downloads and 50 percent from licensing fees.

He said his label's songs are attractive because cash-strapped filmmakers can use the songs as they like for free and have to pay only when they start making money. "As much as musicians are having a hard time making a living, filmmakers and other creative people are having a hard time finding music to use in their works," he said.

And the start-up is making money, he said -- possibly as much as $2 million this year.

Most of this article is from Yahoo

If Valenti and Rosen are for it then either the industry is finally realizing it's on the ropes or they're offering offering changes to the creative commons idea that isn't good to the consumers or artists. I like the creative commons idea but I don't know enough about it yet.

Yeah. Both of them have lied so much in the past that if they endorse something, it's immediately questionable, which may be the whole point.

More from Rosen, after a brief intro by Don Henley from March, 2002:
"Hilary Rosen is, and always has been, the one who engages in gross oversimplification of the issue designed to elicit a sympathetic response from the media, lawmakers and the public," Henley says. "Ms. Rosen well knows that this is a very complex matter that will require lengthy discussions by the concerned parties and their legal experts. When Rosen tosses off such thumbnail synopses, she is not only misrepresenting the position of recording artists but also further damaging the already-fragile atmosphere surrounding this issue."

More from Rosen:
Feb. 2001 -- ""In my opinion Metallica, and I say this somewhat facetiously, almost single-handedly made Napster. When they handed over all of those names, you know, less than 400,000 of their fans, Napster traffic spiked like hell that weekend and basically continued. We never saw a decline since then.

Jan 2003 -- When Rosen was asked about charging ISPs a flat fee for users' file sharing, she said the music industry is not ready to accept that. According to the RIAA, Rosen clearly stated that compulsory licensing is not a good idea.

Weird. These started out as a single post, but every time, only the first one shows up.

Verizon and Kazaa proposed creating a copyright "compulsory license" for Internet music content. Rather than pay for each download, users could pony up a monthly fee that the RIAA would distribute among its constituents. At the time, Rosen called the flat-fee approach "the most disingenuous thing I've ever heard. It's ridiculous."

March, 2003 -- "Singles are back and will be in a big way.

"We have a crack team at our anti-piracy unit.

"We thought we had an agreement with the Isp's. If they help us identify the direct infringer, they won't be liable for infringement themselves. Verizon has unfortunately turned this case into a bogus claim to protect their member's privacy rights.

This is really bizarre... Still the same post.

"Users on p2p systems who want privacy should check the box that prevents your files from being shared. You will protect your privacy and conveniently enough, you will also protect yourself from breaking the law.

August, 2003 -- Rosen claims KaZaA is ruining, not expanding, the recording industry by allowing inferior copies of music to be downloaded with its software. "If you're using KaZaA today, you're getting, in my view, a crappy quality song -- not what the artist did in the studio, not what they wanted you to hear, not their finest work," she said.

You are wasting time on Hillary Rosen.

(George, she is a goodhearted but wrongheaded Liberal Democrat.

DING DONG, that misguided witch is DEAD

...but she was only misguided

and was BLINDED bye the $$$ fame and power

In my heart, I believe that Hillary Rosen could have been on OUR side. IF we had got to her first.

(No, I am NOT "sleeping" with her...

yet.

They always change their tune when it suits them. They are not in charge of ther respective bodies (RIAA and MPAA) anymore so they can say what they like.

Yuck, Shmoo!!

"If you're using KaZaA today, you're getting, in my view, a crappy quality song -- not what the artist did in the studio, not what they wanted you to hear, not their finest work," she said.

Crappy quality is that just like the compression thats in all the "legitimate downloads" ? I think so, i will stick with my 192-256kbps VBR mp3s anyday TYVM.

The thing here is Rosen can claim anything she wishes and the majors will not be held to it. If they want something floated out to see how the world will respond to it, then she is ideal for that sort of thing. I would view this with a lot of sceptisim.

The majors aren't really going to be willing to do this as they have it locked up now. Only thing I could see that would be of benefit to them would be either to change the scope of the creative commons or to use it to float a few songs from an album as try-outs to sell the rest. Neither of which do I see benefit in participating in.

As a second thought it could be used to try out new artists without investing in them to see if they have public appeal and worth signing on to a contract.

At the least there has to be something of benefit to the majors for it to even be considered.

I was hoping to hear a follow-up on the crack team.

"If you're using KaZaA today, you're getting, in my view, a crappy quality song -- not what the artist did in the studio, not what they wanted you to hear, not their finest work," she (Rosen) said.

First of all, if that's the case, then WHY are you suing people that share these crappy files? If they are "a crappy quality song", what do you care if its shared?

Secondly, as opposed to what, a song from iTunes?? I'd rather have a FREE crappy tune than a supposedly higher quality one that I can't do anything with because of DRM.

Finally, this statement means Rosen agrees that the files being shared ARE NOT the same as the originals, that they are, in fact, inferior copies. This should work to improve the "fair use" thought process.