Some rights reserved

Creative Commons licenses in Denmark

Launch: June 10th at 2 pm, Politikens Foredragssal, Vestergade 28, Copenhagen K

With the establishment of the legal rights system, called Creative Commons, in Denmark it is now easier for Danes, artists, authors and teachers to share their work in a way that ensures that they will enjoy the fruits oftheir work, while at the same time ensuring the free exchange of ideas and knowledge. The non-profit organisation is located at CBS where 4 researchers have been in charge of the legal adjustment of the licenses to Danish law.

Custom-made license

"The philosophy behind Creative Commons is to find a kind of middle ground between complete control "all rights reserved" and the total "no rights reserved" so you can turn the degree of control up or down according to the usage of your work", Attorney at Law, Thomas Riis, from the Law Department of CBS explains.

"Creative Commons licences will benefit cultural life in Denmark. The creators and users of everything from music, web logs and homepages to visual arts and books will benefit from the licenses. It gives more freedom to exchange creative work and will make it easier, faster and more transparent", he says.

Creative Commons was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessing, inspired by Free Software Foundation and is represented in more than 60 countries today. We're talking about a voluntary proposition to artists, authors, etc. and the licenses are used extensively worldwide. Yet there are more than 50 million works of art (lyrics, music, video, photo, etc.) on the web licensed under Creative Commons licenses.

The work group consists of Thomas Riis, Jan Trzaskowski (both Department of Law) and the journalist Henrik Moltke.

At the launch of the Danish licenses on June 10th Professor Lawrence Lessing, MP Morten Helveg and Tor Nørretranders will be speaking. Everyone is welcome and it is free.