Founders' Copyright | Creative Commons

The Founders' Copyright

Our licensing project is only the first of many Creative Commons initiatives. Today we're also proud to feature The Founders' Copyright.

The Framers of the U.S. Constitution understood that copyright was about balance — a trade-off between public and private gain, society-wide innovation and creative reward. In 1790, the U.S.'s first copyright law granted authors a monopoly right over their creations for 14 years, with the option of renewing that monopoly for another 14 years.

We want to help restore that sense of balance — not through any change to the current laws, but by helping copyright holders who recognize a long copyright term's limited benefit to voluntarily release that right after a shorter period.

Here's how the Founders' Copyright works: The Creative Commons and a contributor will enter into a contract to guarantee that the relevant creative work will enter into the public domain after 14 years. During the first 14 years after a Founders' Copyrighted work is created, the original creator will have all the rights that copyright permits. After 14 years, the work enters the public domain.

The first adopter of the Founders' Copyright is O'Reilly Associates, world-renowned publishers of incisive commentary about technology and society, as well as best-selling software handbooks. O'Reilly has pledged to release certain copyrights into the public domain under the Founders Copyright, as well as donate some of its content to the public domain immediately. Check here in the next few weeks for a list of what O'Reilly has donated.

Creative Commons, O'Reilly, and our future Founders' Copyright adopters want to show that the choice between what's good for business and what's good for society is a false choice. That a profit-making enterprise may in fact gain by enforcing their rights to the extent they measurably benefit from them — but no further.

If you or your company is interested in learning more about the Founders' Copyright, please contact us.