RSSMicrosoft Office Gets Creative Commons Add-In
By Ed Oswald | Published June 21, 2006, 12:47 PM
Microsoft and non-profit licensing organization Creative Commons said Wednesday that they had struck a deal to allow Office users to add the group's licensing to their documents. Although the two companies have worked together in the past, this latest agreement is the most significant project to date.
The first document to be licensed through the Office tool is a speech by Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil, which will be made at the Creative Commons iSummit in Rio de Janiero, the two companies said.
Such a deal could catapult Creative Commons from a fairly small user base to much wider acceptance as a method for protecting one's work. Microsoft estimates that there are some 400 million Office users worldwide.
The tool, which is available as an add-in for Office, can be downloaded through Microsoft Office Online or the Creative Commons Web site. CC licensing would be available for Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.
"The goal of Creative Commons is to provide authors and artists with simple tools to mark their creative work with the freedom they intend it to carry," founder Lawrence Lessig said. "We're incredibly excited to work with Microsoft to make that ability easily available to the hundreds of millions of users of Microsoft Office."
Users of the add-in would be able to select from a variety of licenses available from Creative Commons. Additionally, the add-in could be used to allow work to become part of the public domain.
"The collaboration of Microsoft and Creative Commons to bring Creative Commons licenses to Microsoft Office applications underscores how for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations can work together to bring innovative ideas and tools to the public," said Alan Yates, general manager of the Information Worker Division at Microsoft.
Lessig added that Creative Commons is looking into ways to help protect other file types, including audio and video. However, it is unclear if Microsoft would open up its Windows Media Player to different licensing.
If this applied in the workplace, it would be far more powerful. Copyrights, however, are automatic once the "ink" hits the "page" in whatever digital form that takes.
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Geez! Creative Commons just shows to be a business and nothing more than that, although it wants to fool people into thinking that's a charity organization of some sort.
Who the hell cares about Creative Commons signature/logo and such ? Why should any documents look better with the CC logo/signature/approval ?
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Oh please. Only good things can come out this.
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"Geez! Creative Commons just shows to be a business and nothing more than that, although it wants to fool people into thinking that's a charity organization of some sort.
Got anything to back that up? Or is it just another dumba** conspiracy theory?
"Who the hell cares about Creative Commons signature/logo and such ? Why should any documents look better with the CC logo/signature/approval ?"
Its not just a logo, it is a license that an author/artist places on their work to state what and how is to be used. A predefined set of terms that covers things the creator may have never considered.
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