Change.GOV switches to Creative Commons

Maybe the new president will bring some change to our copyright laws.  It seems the first step was taken today as CHANGE.GOV’s copyright designation was changed from “all rights reserved” to Creative Commons Attribution license.

It is a well known fact that Lawence Lessig is a supporter of Obama.  Maybe Lessig has some influence on the new President.

Works licensed under Creative Commons are more restricted than works in the public domain.  There is some debate as to whether everything on CHANGE.GOV is by definition already in the public domain.  By definition, works created by the federal government or agents of the federal government are automatically in the public domain.  Obama is not officially the President, but all his content is on a site using a dot GOV domain.  I tell my students that dot GOV web sites are federal government projects.  That makes them in the public domain.

I still think the Creative Commons designation is OK on the site.  There are areas of the site which seek input from the general public.  If someone who is not employed by the federal government were to post a significant creative work in a “comment” area, that post would be licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license.

Our copyright law definitely needs some change.  Since 1998, no copyright protected work has gone into the public domain.  We have ten more years before the Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act expires.  Hopefully, CHANGE.GOV will do more than add a Creative Commons logo to the site.