Policy Innovations The central address for a fairer globalization

A publication of the Carnegie Council

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Creative Commons

Description	Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control—a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy—a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation—once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally—have become endangered species. Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them—to declare "some rights reserved." Thus, a single goal unites Creative Commons' current and future projects: to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules.

Related Person	Lawrence Lessig, Board Member

Contact	171 Second St, Suite 300 San Francisco, CA 94105 UNITED STATES Phone: 1-415-369-8480 Fax: 1-415-278-9419

Website	http://creativecommons.org/ (link opens in a new window)