Creative Commons in Open Design
Description
Markus Beckedahl/ Andrea Goetzke:
"In digital design communities Creative Commons licenses were already
in use at a rather early stage, e.g. for sharing clip art images,
graphics or photos on platforms such as flickr.com. Yet what is really
interesting are the first steps out into the material design world
of real objects. More and more projects, experiments and examples
for how the open source idea can be carried over into the real world
can be subsumed under the notion of “open design”.
Creative Commons is a US-based non government organization that has been publishing standardized license texts for copyrighted content since 2001. What is so special about it is the fact that these licenses have meanwhile been adapted to the respective national copyright laws in more than 50 countries and their clauses and freedoms are in force everywhere. The person who takes center stage is the creator, who can grant certain freedoms to use his or her work. With the help of a license kit the creator chooses if the work can be used commercially or non-commercially, if it can be remixed or not and if the same conditions shall apply for the remixes (i.e. any resulting copies or adaptations are also bound by the same licensing agreement) as specified in the copyleft principle from the world of free software. The only condition in all six Creative Commons licenses is the following: The creator must always be named as a source. Free software with its manifold licenses has been the model for the idea of Creative Commons licenses. “All rights reserved” of classic copyright has turned into “Some rights reserved”. So creators can enter their works into a large shared pool of knowledge and creativity, and in the best case scenario, the works can be further processed without any further inquiry and additional agreements." (http://issuu.com/openp2pdesign/docs/cis.doc_open-design)
Examples
Ronen Kadushin
URL = ronen -kadushin .com
The Berlin-based designer Ronen Kadushin is one of the pioneers of open design. Already quite early he experimented with publishing his raw data under a Creative Commons license. This is what motivated him: “It should encourage designers to share their creativity and to create a collection of high quality products.” Thus he shares the objects he designed such as furniture or lamps online under a non-commercial CC license. Owners and users of a laser cutter can manufacture the products using the digital template, e.g. laser machining them from a steel sheet and manually forming the final product. In this way computer-controlled production technologies and manual work go hand in hand.
The CC-BY-NC license grants the right to use for private (non-commercial) purposes if all derivative works are shared under a license identical to the license that governs the original work. If you want to commercially produce the objects, you have to conclude a contract with the designer.
Yet Kadushin mainly produces and distributes his objects in a conventional manner. Publicly sharing the designs under a CC license is just an additional distribution channel. Along with the creations of other designers his works are available on platforms such as “Movisi – The inspirational furniture store”. The raw designs can be found on his website, but also on platforms such as “flexible stream”.
Digital distribution of the designs under a CC license facilitates decentralized production and distribution. Thus the designs can be found in countries where designers otherwise would have never exported their products nor would have advertised for themselves. So if somebody finds a design there and is interested in producing it, he or she can experiment with the design for a start and then possibly agree on jointly producing it with the designer." (http://issuu.com/openp2pdesign/docs/cis.doc_open-design)