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Copyright Law
Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright. They are built on top of it. The default of “all rights reserved” copyright means that all rights to copy and adapt a work are reserved by the author or creator (with some important exceptions that you will learn about shortly). By contrast, Creative Commons licenses adopt a “some rights reserved” approach, enabling authors or creators to free up their works for reuse by the public under certain conditions. To understand how Creative Commons licenses work, it is important that you have a basic understanding of copyright.
This chapter has five sections:
- Copyright Basics
- Global Aspects of Copyright
- The Public Domain
- Exceptions and Limitations of Copyright
- Additional Resources
This chapter is important because Creative Commons licenses and public domain tools depend on copyright in order to work. While some aspects of copyright law have been harmonized around the world, the laws of copyright generally vary—sometimes dramatically—from country to country. The information contained in this chapter is not intended to be exhaustive or to cover all aspects of the complex laws of copyright around the world, or even every aspect of copyright that may impact how the CC licenses operate in a particular situ-
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