Digital Libraries Colloquium Series

"Copyright in a Networked Society: Creative Commons and Machine-Readable Law"

WHO: Michael Carroll, Associate Professor of Law at Villanova University
and member of the Board of Directors of Creative Commons
WHEN: December 6, 3-5 p.m. (lecture from 3:30-4:30 p.m.)
WHERE: Rangos 3, University Center, Carnegie Mellon

ABSTRACT: Creative Commons responds to the problem that inhibits the realization of the full communicative potential of digital networks: copyright law. Under the default rules, nearly all uses of a copyrighted work require a license from the copyright owner unless the use falls within a legal privilege, such as fair use. As digital networks expand, the variety of activities governed by copyright law also expands. Uncertainty about which uses of new technologies require a copyright license limits the utility of these technologies. This talk will focus on reasons for the rapid growth of Creative Commons and then address other efforts to solve the problems that copyright law poses for a networked society; in particular, the ways in which current copyright practices inhibit use of digital networks as media for education and scholarly communication.

Creative Commons, a non-profit corporation (www.creativecommons.org), offers a suite of human-readable and machine-readable copyright licenses that can be attached to objects on digital networks. A Creative Commons license communicates to users that the copyright owner permits certain types of use subject to certain minimal conditions, such as giving the author credit.


This lecture is part of the Digital Libraries Colloquium Series sponsored by

Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science
University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh Library System
Carnegie Mellon University Libraries