The Creative Commons (CC) initiative offers a flexible licensing scheme that simplifies the sharing of ideas in cyberspace while protecting intellectual property rights. Here are local first hand accounts.

Share, reuse, and remix – legally. That's the proud slogan of the Creative Commons (CC) initiative, an open-source-like platform for the creative arts community.

CC is a flexible licensing scheme that allows collaboration in cyberspace.

CC copyrighted work has the "Some Rights Reserved" clause rather than the prohibitive "All Rights Reserved" clause.

JOINT EFFORT: An example of a Creative Commons type collaboration.

Picture this. A musician records a folk song in his bedroom and puts it on the Net.

A classical musician then puts an offbeat string arrangement onto the song while a disc jockey continues by adding a drum loop to it.

What was intended as a simple Dylan-esque acoustic song has become a bold folk/dance/classical hybrid musical piece.

But the creative process doesn't end there. A student, intrigued by the quirky piece of music, proceeds to create a short animation to accompany it.

Next, an independent filmmaker chances upon it and decides to add video to it.

Finally, a tech-savvy kid decides to send it out an as Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) to all his friends.

At the end of the whole mix-and-match process, a three-minute folk ditty that probably would be lost in the vast depths of cyberspace has become a full-blown multimedia project that is getting exposed as it is sent from one handphone to another.

Easing the collaborative process

The Creative Commons (CC) initiative makes this scenario a possibility. With CC, the idea is for a piece of art to keep evolving in cyberspace without the worry of copyright infringement.

Artistes are free to experiment with other artistes' ideas and evolve them – be it music, photography, video, art, etc.

GOOD MIX: CC has the potential to generate very interesting collaborative situations, says Teo.

This initiative for the arts means artistes can put pieces of work in cyberspace (at the creativecommons.org website) and watch it evolve from the comfort of their room.

"If you are inclined to do 'viral' collaborative work with artistes, it is a good way to start. It has the potential to generate very interesting collaborative situations," enthuses local folk musician Pete Teo.

Teo explains how CC eases the collaborative process. For instance, if he writes a piece of music and licenses it with CC, allowing others to alter it, someone from the other side of the world could modify his original work.

"The piece now has two authors. And then gets picked up by yet another musician from yet another corner of the world.

"On and on it goes. You can see how an original piece of work could morph into something entirely surprising within a viral process like this," he said.

CC allows pleasant surprises to happen, without the original author or any of the subsequent authors losing legal control of the resultant work.

"Traditional copyright law would be very cumbersome and expensive in a situation like this," explained Teo.

Less rigid

The Creative Commons licence allows artistic work to be shared less rigidly compared to the traditional licensing regime, blogger and photographer Jeff Ooi said.

Pop-rock musician, Sudev Bangah, shares Teo's enthusiasm for the collaborative potential for the CC initiative.

"Artistically, Creative Commons has allowed me to share my music with a broad group of people across the globe," he said.

He expounds on a current collaboration. "I am currently in discussion with a couple of people from Peru and South Korea about setting up an Asian CC Band project.

"We want to collaborate with musicians across the continent to come up with music and post it up on websites across the globe," he said.

"This allows for more creative input and to learn from others at the same time," he said.

CC isn't just a playground for musicians. "CC also allows creative people such as artists, designers, photographers and writers to share and contribute," said graphic designer Muid Latif.

He explained that the CC website enabled him to mix photos and visuals together to create interesting graphics.

Muid said that this saved him time, as he doesn't need to go out and take his own photographs all the time.

"What I did was search the CC website and download some of the photographs submitted by its users" he said.

BIGGER AUDIENCE: Sudev says that CC allows him to share his music with a broad group of people around the world.

"CC introduced the concept where we can allow people to distribute or share without violating our work," he said.

Illustrator Iman Mohd says, "CC also allows me to share uploaded works with other artist on the Web, thus creating an online community.

"The CC licence allows me to improve, learn and share new techniques with other artists while helping speed up my work.

Ample protection

Both Latif and Iman can't imagine life without CC. "Most creative people will probably be paranoid and wary in sharing their work to the public without it," said Iman.

"CC is an alternative to traditional copyright regimes which are costly and not effective in protecting the intellectual property rights of a budding artiste, who is usually financially-stretched," said Ooi.

Ooi uses photography to complement his blogs. "I am preaching CC to the over 2,000 photographers who are members of LensaMalaysia.com.

"I want them to protect their intellectual property rights – by having "some rights reserved" until they become commercially sought-after photographers," he said.

CC makes the world an oyster for artistes.

"CC has provided me with the platform to actually think about making music for an audience," said Sudev.

Teo says that CC has also helped him find an audience, "My free download page has had some positive commercial impact.

"Because I only make some of my work available for free on my CC page, those who learn of my work through the page often legitimately buy my other work (either in CD form or through iTunes) so it generates extra sales for me in an interesting way.

"Most importantly, it generates interest for my work in territories that are otherwise impossible for me to reach such as Romania, Jamaica, India, Iran and Iceland."

Sudev said, "Since last December, I've received more than 500 unique visitors to my site that have access my music.

"Life without CC would mean that there would be 500 less people who have heard my music," he said.

"It definitely boosts your reputation and helps in your career as a creative artiste while offering a way to promote yourself and your work globally.

"It is a way for artistes to share and learn from each other," said Iman.

• 
• 
•