History of Creative Commons

The first copyright law in the United States was ratified in The Constitution. At that time copyright was assigned to books, maps and charts for a period of 14 years. The United States Copyright Office was established in 1897 under the direction of Thorvald Solberg, who was appointed the First Register of Copyrights.  In 1976, Copyright was extended to all works, published and unpublished, and the length of copyright was established as life of author plus 50 years. 

Copyright was extended further in 1998 under The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act (CTEA), which changed copyright protection to the life of the creator plus 70 years. The CTEA encompassed both existing works and works yet to be created. The CTEA was also referred to as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act, because it prevented Steamboat Willie, Mickey Mouse's first cartoon from entering the public domain. 

Web publisher Eric Eldred felt that the CTEA was unconstitutional and became lead plaintiff on the case Eldred v. Ashcroft. Eldred and his fellow plaintiffs felt that Congress had violated the "the limited time" doctrine of the copyright section in the Constitution when they extended the length of copyright terms for works already in existence. Most of the plaintiffs on the case represented entities that used items that were in the public domain. The case went to the Supreme Court which ruled that the CTEA was not unconstitutional. 

The lead attorney on Eldred v. Ashcroft, Lawrence Lessig, felt that traditional copyright was not adaptive enough for the technology created by the internet. Online creators were creating, sharing and remixing the work of others and they needed a way for copyright to be more flexible. Lessig and a group of colleagues formed Creative Commons (CC) with the goal of creating free public licenses that would allow creators to share their work under more flexible terms while retaining their copyright.  

According to Melody Herr, "CC licenses make explicit what users are allowed to do with the work and the conditions for use."  CC licenses  also encourage sharing by "reducing paperwork." "The copyright holder chooses the license terms, places a notice on the work, and makes the work publicly available."

There is no need to request permissions with CC licensed content because the terms for reuse are already laid out in license. 

There are currently almost 2 billion works using CC licenses. Creative Commons today is a global non-profit that supports the open movement and CC licenses. 

Sources: (Links open in new window)

The Mickey Mouse photo has been adapted from the original "Steamboat Willie-Mickey Mouse" by Jim the Photographer and is licensed under CC BY 2.0. 

"One Year of Free Pictures" by Carlos ZGZ is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

United States Copyright Office. "Registers of Copyright, Thorvald Solberg, 1897-1930."

Herr, Melody. "The Interpretation of Creative Commons Licenses by US Federal Courts." The Journal of Academic Librarianship 47, no.1 (2021:1-7.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102227

This information has been adapted from "Unit 1: What is Creative Commons" in Creative Commons Certificate for Educators, Academic Librarians, and GLAM by Creative Commons and is licensed under CC BY 4.0.