Warum Creative Commons wichtig ist
Aus PiratenWiki
The public domain is little understood, rarely defended, and under constant attack from those who would have all works of the human imagination kept under lock and key through a combination of perpetual copyright and technological protection measures. Partly this is because it can be difficult to determine whether a particular piece of work is in the public domain, and since the rules differ in different jurisdictions the status of all but the most obvious – for which read ‘older’- works must often be considered questionable.
Despite this lack of awareness it is difficult to understate the practical importance of the public domain or to exaggerate the damage caused by recent moves to restrict its scope and stop works either dropping out of copyright or being available for use when they do.
This is not just about music. Creative writers make use of the public domain in a wide range of contexts, from a literary novel like Sena Jeter Naslund’s Ahab’s Wife which appropriates characters from Melville’s Moby-Dick, to the Simpsons episode Tales from the Public Domain which ruthlessly plunders The Odyssey and Hamlet for our amusement.
There would seem to be a pressing need to create, defend, grow and cultivate this space for creativity and ensure that its boundaries are drawn more widely not less, yet everywhere around us we see newly imposed limits on its scope.
Laws designed to protect the interests of rights holders allow them to wrap digital rights management systems around published material and then prosecute those who breach the DRM even if the purpose for which the material is to be used is itself perfectly permissible.
In this way copyright law is superseded, and rights which might be granted under the law are removed, replaced with far more restrictive licenses which are themselves protected by rigid legislation that allows no fair dealing defence.
