Final Remarks
Creative Commons legal tools were designed to provide a solution to complicated laws in a standardized way, making them as easy as possible for non-lawyers to use and apply. Understanding the basic legal principles in this section will help you use the CC licenses and public domain tools more effectively.
3.4 | LICENSE ENFORCEABILITY
Creative Commons licenses have been carefully crafted to make them legally enforceable in countries around the world.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
- Describe the state of Creative Commons case law
- Explain the potential benefits of seeking nonlegal resolutions to disagreements
THE BIG QUESTION: WHY IT MATTERS
Creative Commons licenses are legal tools that build on copyright law. As legal instruments, CC licenses need to stand up in court. What happens when there is a court case that involves CC licenses? What happens if someone is violating the CC license you applied to a work, but you don’t want to file a lawsuit? What happens if a licensor complains about how you have attributed them when reusing their work?
To date and to our knowledge, no court around the world that has heard a case involving a CC license (and there have been very few such cases) has questioned the validity or enforceability of a CC license. Thanks to the Creative Commons community, most disputes connected to CC licenses are resolved outside of court and often without involving lawyers.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU
Whether you or your organization are using CC licenses, or you’re advising others in the use of such licenses, you want to be confident that the terms of those licenses are enforceable. If someone misuses your work, what recourse do you have? What would you do if you found out that someone was using your CC-licensed photograph in a magazine without giving you credit, for example?
