4.3 Creative Commons (CC) licences

Copyright laws are all about protecting the (mostly) economic rights of the individual creator and preventing unauthorised use. They provide a legal framework for copyright owners to pursue those who copy or use their material without credit, which is known as plagiarism.

Copyright laws in some countries have been in existence for many years and can be slow to change. In Myanmar, copyright law was enacted as long ago as 1914 based on the 1911 British Copyright Act, being replaced in 2019. Digital technology, such as the internet, provides the means for rightsholders to share their works more easily. However, many rightsholders wanted to share their works (and at the same time benefit from others sharing) but were concerned about protection of their works and needed assurance that they were only going to be used in ways that they agreed with.

Creative Commons was founded in 2001 and provides a set of licences which are guaranteed by the rightsholder to be non-revocable providing the user abides by the easy-to-read licence terms. These licences operate both online and offline. Creative Commons licensing has proved successful and easily identifiable by its logo and symbols, which are internationally recognisable even if the licence itself is written in a local language.

So rights owners can make their works freely-available under an appropriate CC licence and any rights not granted still rest with the copyright holder (rights owners). This means that their copyright is protected as well as being shared. Using Creative Commons in this way also promotes their works and could result in some income streams which are still available to licence under a commercial licence if they need to. A rightsholder may withdraw their work from a CC licence at any time. However, those works already accessed and being used still enjoy the non-revocable licence.

The video below was made by Creative Commons and illustrates the benefits of the licences.

Download this video clip.Video player: sdw_cc_wanna_work_together.mp4
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4.4 How do Creative Commons licences work?