Creativity and Licensing

1. This paper will hopefully help to explore the ideas raised in age old questions about the nature of creativity, but with a new twist of how licensing effects the ability to not only “be creative” but also how it effects how we share and use creative goods.
2. Creativity
3. What is creativity
   Is defined as: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination (dictionary.com)
   From a scientific point of view, the products of creative thought (sometimes referred to as divergent thought) are usually considered to have both originality and appropriateness. (wikipedia)
   There are even whole societies (American Creativity Association-ACA) based on the idea of creativity and fostering that mentality
   The ACA views creativity as a discipline and defines the field in broad terms to include psychological and social processes as well as implementation processes (innovation) and impacts.
   History of Creativity
   Development of Term
   latin “creatio” designated God's creation of earth and man (creation from nothing)---didn't have to do with human's creations (wikipedia)
   Modification of the term
   The first to apply the word "creativity," however, was the 17th-century Polish poet Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski
   One always hears arguments about the creativity of certain artistic endeavors such as additions to already known works ( Marcel Duchamp's Mona Lisa with a mustache) or remixes
   Where does creativity come from?
   When you're little and color a purple duck some teachers might tell you that this is wrong, but some more modern teachers may argue that you are merely being “creative” by adding or doing something to the common duck that doesn't naturally occur
   I want to argue that everyone has the ability to be creative, and it is not something that is just available to those who follow the proper steps---it is not exclusionary and not elitist
   Licensing
   Does licensing create the problem of limiting creativity by allowing so much content to be readily available and thus be copied or does it foster creativity by offering ideas of things to make better or content that you can change to fit new specifications
   Copyright is the old fall back for licensing, but Creative Commons is trying to open the doors to new ways to license and new ways to think about licensing. Does this create more of a problem for sharing by giving so much control over to the creator or does this create a larger network of creativity
4. Licensing
   Does licensing create the problem of limiting creativity by allowing so much content to be readily available and thus be copied or does it foster creativity by offering ideas of things to make better or content that you can change to fit new specifications
   Copyright is the old fall back for licensing, but Creative Commons is trying to open the doors to new ways to license and new ways to think about licensing. Does this create more of a problem for sharing by giving so much control over to the creator or does this create a larger network of creativity
   Copyright
   Copyright is a form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works. (copyright website)
   This used to be, and still is in many cases, the default for most people to add to their work so they feel more safe.
   Many don't have the knowledge or understanding to know what a copyright does and does not protect, but slapping that copyright on their work makes them feel better BUT Boyle says “Contrary to what everyone has told you, the subject of intellectual property is both accessible and interesting;
   what people can understand, they can change—or pressure their legislators to change.”
   Creative Commons
   Creative Commons, as the name suggests, even mentions creativity in their mission statement:
   We work to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and scientific content) in “the commons” — the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.
   Creativity is used here in the most broad sense ever as something that can encompass about anything that your mind can think of
   Still has limitations, but provides the creator with more control as to how their intellectual property is seen and used. (even the Creative Commons website itself is licensed under their own “Attribution” license)
   Has four choices for licenses all backed by legal code
   Share Alike
   Attribution
   Non commercial
   No derivative works

Mona Lisa with a mustache