Legal experts unveil UK version of the Creative Commons licence

By Matt Whipp

Posted on 5 Oct 2004 at 13:13

Respected intellectual property expert Lawrence Lessig unveiled a UK version of the Creative Commons licence in London yesterday.

The Professor of Law at Stanford University is working with the Programme in Comparative Media Law and Policy at Oxford University on creating a 'UK port' of the Creative Commons licenses.

Lessig said in a BBC interview that under current law, 'You either have to break the law or you have to not be creative. We thought that was not a fair choice.'

'The system needs some flexibility between all rights reserved and no rights reserved,' he said.

Instead, the Creative Commons licences allows authors 'to mark their content with the freedoms that they intend other people to have with their content'.

Lessig said that the UK is just one 60 different countries in the process of porting the licence to their native jurisdictions.

Among copyright holders that have embraced such licences, Chuck D, The Beastie Boys, David Byrne have all signed up to a Creative Commons licence that allows others to remix their music.

Rather than limiting the amount of money these artists can make from their music, these licences mean others can create new music using their work, thus broadening the appeal.

The UK version is currently undergoing a period of consultation before a 1 November launch. Comments are invited until 18 October.