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OER Background: Creative Commons (CC) - Licensing and OER

DISCLAIMER: Material provided is only intended as a guide. This guide is not a substitute for professional legal advice.

Why was the "Creative Commons" created?

The "Creative Commons" was Created to Counterbalance Copyright Duration Extensions

Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organization providing free legal tools (licenses) that allow voluntary release of some of the rights automatically granted to copyright holders
Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
"Current US law extends copyright for 70 years after the date of the author's death, and corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication."
Intellectual Property Law Meets Public Interest Law
"In the United States, we haven’t seen works have their copyright expire and enter the public domain for nearly 20 years because of the term extension passed in 1998."
Why Was Creative Commons Created? Look at FAQs (creativecommons.org)

Leading up to the creation of Creative Commons

Image Source: File:Tom Bell's graph showing extension of U.S. copyright term over time.svg
TURNING POINT: U.S. Congress passes the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA), extending the term of copyright by an additional 20 years.
The CTEA was commonly referred to as the Mickey Mouse Protection Act
because the extension came just before the original Mickey Mouse cartoon, Steamboat Willie, would have fallen into the public domain.

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