Is Creative Commons a Panacea for Managing Digital IPs? (Part 2: Literature Review)

Usually identified as rights experts, academic librarians are in a unique position to provide copyright education in the digital humanities field through consultation, instruction, and other means to faculty and students.[3] Librarians sometimes position themselves as “reuse evangelists” who embrace the vision of Creative Commons by applying CC licenses as well as introducing CC licenses to the campus community through guides and webpages.[4]

Yet, few discussions have been brought up about the limitations of CC licenses in the library community.[5] Drawing from scholarly literature from the law field and primary sources including lawsuits, websites, magazine articles, and newspaper articles involving this topic, this article intends to bring a critical perspective into the copyright education academic librarians provide by analyzing the four limitations of CC licenses in managing digital humanities projects intellectual property rights.

In the law community, scholars have examined the limitations of open licensing and Creative Commons. Katz elaborated the mismatch of the vision of Creative Commons and its licensors as well as how the incompatibility of CC licenses may result in potential detriment to the dissemination of knowledge.[6] Scholars later have referred to Katz in extensive discussions of the limitations of CC licenses in different realms of copyrighted works.

For example, Johnson investigated several limitations of CC licenses for entertainment media, including those with ShareAlike, NonCommercial, and NonDerivative licenses.[7] Lukoseviciene acknowledged the efficiency of CC licenses while pointing out its limitation in ensuring equity in a sharing culture.[8] When discussing the problems of CC licenses in data sharing, Khayyat and Bannisterechoed Katz’s critique on the limitation of CC licenses in combining copyrighted works with different types of licenses.[9]

Scholars have also addressed problems related to intellectual property rights other than copyright when applying for CC licenses. For example, Hietnanen discussed the problems of license interpretation and concluded that although CC licenses are useful for “low value -high volume licensing,” it fails to address some important intellectual property rights including privacy and moral rights.[10] Burger demonstrated how CC commercial licenses have encouraged publicity right infringement in several cases.[11]

Nevertheless, none of the above scholars discussed the implication of the limitations of CC licenses in digital scholarship. To solve the problem of excessive open-source licenses, Gomulkiewicz suggested a license-selection “wizard” modeling what Creative Commons offers, which demonstrates the limitation of CC licenses in managing the intellectual property rights of codes, a common component of many digital humanities projects.[12]

This article does not aim to conduct a comprehensive assessment of pitfalls of CC licenses in digital scholarship or make legal recommendations to manage the intellectual property rights of digital humanities projects. Rather, it discusses the four limitations of CC licenses that are usually overlooked but essential for academic librarians to educate patrons in the digital humanities field.

With the development of the digital humanities field and more students involved in it, academic librarians should educate both faculty scholars and emerging scholars about implications of applying CC licenses.[13]

NOTES

1. Amanda Hornby and Leslie Bussert, "Digital Scholarship and Scholarly Communication," University of Washington Libraries, accessed November 30, 2016, https://www.uwb.edu/getattachment/tlc/faculty/teachingresources/newmedia.

2. Oya Y Rieger, “Framing Digital Humanities: The Role of New Media in Humanities Scholarship,” First Monday 15, no. 10 (October 11, 2010), http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3198.

3. Elizabeth Joan Kelly, "Rights Instruction for Undergraduate Students: Needs, Trends, and Resources," College & Undergraduate Libraries 25, no. 1 (2018): 1-16, https://doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2016.1275910

4. Daniel Hickey, "The Reuse Evangelist: Taking Ownership of Copyright Questions at Your Library," Reference & User Services Quarterly 51, no. 1 (2011): 9-11;“Research Guides: Image Resources: Creative Commons Images,”Creative Commons Images -Image Resources -Research Guides at UCLA Library,accessed April 28, 2019,https://guides.library.ucla.edu/c.php?g=180361&p=1185834; “Finding Public Domain & Creative Commons Media: Images,”Research Guides,accessed April 28, 2019, https://guides.library.harvard.edu/c.php?g=310751&p=2072816 and Harvard are two good examples.

5. Lewin-Lane et al., "The Search for a Service Model of Copyright Best Practices in Academic Libraries," Journal of Copyright in Education and Librarianship 2, no. 2 (2018): 1-24. Harvard.For example, when conducting a literature review of the copyright education in academic libraries to search for best practices, does not discuss any limitation of CC licensesin this article.

6. Zachary Katz, "Pitfalls of Open Licensing: An Analysis of Creative Commons Licensing," Idea: The Intellectual Property Law Review 46, no. 3 (2006): 391-413.

7. Eric E.Johnson,"Rethinking Sharing Licenses for Entertainment Media," Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal 26, no. 2 (2008): 391-440.

8. AurelijaLukoseviciene, "Beyond the Creative Commons Framework of Production and Dissemination of Knowledge," http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1973967.

9. Mashael Khayyat and Frank Bannister,“Open Data Licensing: More than Meets the Eye,” Information Polity:The International Journal of Government & Democracy in the Information Age20 (4): 231–52, https://doi:10.3233/IP-150357.

10. Herkko Hietanen, “The Pursuit of Efficient Copyright Licensing: How Some Rights Reserved Attempts to Solve the Problems of All Rights Reserved,” Lappeenranta University of Technology, 2008.

11. Christa Engel Pletcher Burger, “Are Publicity Rights Gone in a Flash?: Flickr, Creative Commons, and the Commercial Use of Personal Photographs,” Florida State Business Review 8(2009):129, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1476347.

12. Robert W Gomulkiewicz, “Open Source License Proliferation: Helpful Diversity or Hopeless Confusion?” Washington University Journal of Law & Policy 30 (2009): 261;Expanded Academic ASAP, accessed April 28, 2019, http://link.galegroup.com.libproxy.csun.edu/apps/doc/A208273638/EAIM?u=csunorthridge&sid=EAIM&xid=4bbf2442.

13. Jacob H. Rooksby, “A Fresh Look at Copyright on Campus,” Missouri Law Review (Summer 2016):769;General OneFile, accessed April 27, 2019, http://link.galegroup.com.libproxy.csun.edu/apps/doc/A485538679/ITOF?u=csunorthridge&sid=ITOF&xid=1f2822f3.

14. “eScholarship: Copyright & Legal Agreements,” accessed December 1, 2016, http://escholarship.org/help_copyright.html#creative.

15. “Directory of Open Access Journals,” DOAJ, accessed December 1, 2016, https://doaj.org.

16. “Frequently Asked Questions—Creative Commons,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/faq/#do-i-need-to-register-with-creative-commons-before-i-obtain-a-license.

17. “Copyright in General,”U.S.Copyright Office, accessed July 30, 2019, https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html.

18. “Why Should I Register My Work If Copyright Protection Is Automatic?,”Copyright Alliance,accessed July 28, 2019, https://copyrightalliance.org/ca_faq_post/copyright-protection-ata/.

19. “Copyright Basics,” U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress, accessed November 30, 2016. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf#page=7.

20. Phil Clapham,“Are Creative Commons Licenses Overly Permissive? The Case of a Predatory Publisher,”BioScience(2018):842-43, accessed April 20, 2019, https://doi:10.1093/biosci/biy098; Cornelius Puschmann and Marco Bastos,“How Digital Are the Digital Humanities? An Analysis of Two Scholarly Blogging Platforms,” Plos One 10, no. 2 (2015), accessed April 20, 2019. https://doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0115035.

21. “Why Your Blog Images Are aTicking Time Bomb,” Koozai.com, accessed December 2, 2016, https://www.koozai.com/blog/content-marketing-seo/blog-sued-for-images/.

22. John W. White and HeatherGilbert eds., Laying the Foundation: Digital Humanities in Academic Libraries (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2016), ProQuest Ebook Central.

23. “Considerations for Licensors and Licensees—Creative Commons,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Considerations_for_licensors_and_licensees.

24. “The Terms ‘Revocable’ and ‘Irrevocable’in License Agreements: Tips and Pitfalls,” accessed December 7, 2016, http://www.sidley.com/news/the-terms-revocable-and-irrevocable-in-license-agreements-tips-and-pitfalls-02-21-2013.

25. Mark Seeley and Lois Wasoff, “Legal Aspects and Copyright-15,”in Academic and Professional Publishing, edited byRobert Campbell, Ed Pentz,and Ian Borthwick (Cambridge, UK: Elsevier Ltd, 2012), 355-83.

26. Douglas MacMillan, “Fight Over Yahoo’s Use of Flickr Photos,” Wall Street Journal, November 25, 2014, sec. Tech, http://www.wsj.com/articles/fight-over-flickrs-use-of-photos-1416875564.

27. “Flickr Apologizes but What About CC Abuses by Others?,” accessed December 7, 2016, http://www.artists-bill-of-rights.org/news/campaign-news/flickr-apologizes-but-what-about-cc-abuses-by-others?/.

28. “The Terms ‘Revocable’ and ‘Irrevocable’ in License Agreements: Tips and Pitfalls,” accessed December 7, 2016, http://www.sidley.com/news/the-terms-revocable-and-irrevocable-in-license-agreements-tips-and-pitfalls-02-21-2013.

29. “Legal Code—Creative Commons,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/Legal_code.

30. “Why CC-BY?—OASPA,” accessed December 7, 2016, http://oaspa.org/why-cc-by/.

31. “Why CC-BY?—OASPA.”

32. “Intellectual Property Policy,”The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, accessed July 28, 2019, https://mellon.org/grants/grantmaking-policies-and-guidelines/grantmaking-policies/intellectual-property-policy/.

33. “Why I’m Giving up on Creative Commons on YouTube,” Eddie.com, September 6, 2014, http://eddie.com/2014/09/05/why-im-giving-up-on-creative-commons-on-youtube/.

34. “Creative Commons—Attribution 4.0 International—CC BY 4.0,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

35. “Why I’m Giving up on Creative Commons on YouTube.”

36, “Creative Commons—Attribution 4.0 International—CC BY 4.0.”

37. “Why I’m Giving up on Creative Commons on YouTube.”

38. “Creative Commons—Attribution 4.0 International—CC BY 4.0.”

39. Ibid.

40. “CC Search,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://search.creativecommons.org/.

41. “Creative Commons—Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International—CC BY-NC-SA 4.0,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode.

42. “U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index,”U.S. Copyright Office, accessed April 21, 2019, https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Jerry D Campbell,“Intellectual Property in a Networked World: Balancing Fair Use and Commercial Interests,” Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory 19, no. 2 (1995): 179-84, https://doi:10.1016/0364-6408(95)00020-A; Igor Slabykh,“Ambiguous Commercial Nature of Use in Fair Use Analysis,” AIPLA Quarterly Journal 46, no. 3 (2018): 293-339.

46. “Defending Noncommercial Uses: Great Minds v Fedex Office,” Creative Commons, August 30, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/2016/08/30/defending-noncommercial-uses-great-minds-v-fedex-office/.

47. “Princeton University Press v. Michigan Document Services,” Bitlaw, accessed December 7, 2016, http://www.bitlaw.com/source/cases/copyright/pup.html#IIIA.

48. Justia, “Great Minds v. FedEx Office & Print Services, Inc,”Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center, March 21, 2018, https://fairuse.stanford.edu/case/great-minds-v-fedex-office-print-services-inc/.

49. Minjeong Kim,“The Creative Commons and Copyright Protection in the Digital Era: Uses of Creative Commons Licenses,” Journal of Computer‐Mediated Communication 13, no. 1 (2007): 187-209,https://doi:10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00392.x; “Directory of Open Access Journals,” DOAJ, accessed December 1, 2016, https://doaj.org.

50. “FEATURE: Creative Commons: Copyright Tools for the 21st Century,” accessed December 7, 2016, http://www.infotoday.com/online/jan10/Gordon-Murnane.shtml.

51. “The Creative Commons and Copyright Protection in the Digital Era: Uses of Creative Commons Licenses.”

52. Ibid.

53. “Creative Commons—Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International—CC BY-SA 4.0,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode#s6a.

54. “17 U.S. Code § 101—Definitions,” Legal Information Institute, accessed April 20, 2019, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101.

55. “Creative Commons—Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International—CC BY-NC-ND 4.0,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode.

56. “Creative Commons—Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International—CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.”

57. The famous Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music case established that a commercial parodycould qualify as fair use.

58. Katz, “Pitfalls of Open Licensing,”411.

59. “Professional Ethics,”Tools, Publications & Resources, American Library Association, February 6, 2019, http://www.ala.org/tools/ethics.

60. “Creative Commons—Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International—CC BY-SA 4.0,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/.

61. Molly Houweling,“The New Servitudes,” Georgetown Law Journal 96, no. 3 (2008): 885-950.

62. “Compatible Licenses,” Creative Commons,accessed December 7, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-considerations/compatible-licenses/.

63. Katz, “Pitfalls of Open Licensing,”391; Susan Corbett, “Creative Commons Licences,the Copyright Regime and the Online Community: Is There a Fatal Disconnect?,” The Modern Law Review 74, no. 4 (2011):506, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20869091.

64. Lawrence Lessig,“Against Transparency,” New Republic, October 8, 2009, https://newrepublic.com/article/70097/against-transparency.

65. “Creative Commons CEO Apologizes To Virgin Mobile—Stock Photography News, Analysis and Opinion,” accessed December 7, 2016, https://www.selling-stock.com/Article/creative-commons-ceo-apologizes-to-virgin-mob.

66. “Frequently Asked Questions,”Creative Commons, accessed July 30, 2019, https://creativecommons.org/faq/#how-are-publicity-privacy-and-personality-rights-affected-when-i-apply-a-cc-license.

67. “Defending Noncommercial Uses: Great Minds v Fedex Office,” Creative Commons, August 30, 2016, https://creativecommons.org/2016/08/30/defending-noncommercial-uses-great-minds-v-fedex-office/.

68. Andrea Maloneet al., “Center Stage: Performing a Needs Assessment of Campus Research Centers and Institutes,” Journal of Library Administration 57, no.4 (2017): 406–19, https://doi:10.1080/01930826.2017.1300451.

69. Laura Gordon-Murnane,“FEATURE: Creative Commons: Copyright Tools for the 21st Century,” Information Today, accessed December 7, 2016, http://www.infotoday.com/online/jan10/Gordon-Murnane.shtml.

70. Ibid.

Originally published as “Attribution Confusion” with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.