Can Anime and Manga Be Open Source? Creative Commons Basics

infoivonblog.nkfjt@aleeas.com (Ivon Huang) — Mon, 30 May 2022 12:00:00 +0800

Can Anime and Manga Works Be Open Sourced? Examples of Applying Creative Commons Licenses to Artistic Creation.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional lawyer. If you need to discuss formal legal issues, please consult a real lawyer.

Creative Commons licenses (Creative Commons CC) are a series of license terms regulating the sharing of online materials, giving creators guidelines to follow when allowing the public to access their works.

The free software movement has developed for 30 years and produced the famous GNU GPL license. Getting program code open sourced is not difficult, but what about open sourcing one’s own “artistic” works? Can anime, manga, games, and music works also be “open sourced”?

1. Free Software License Terms and Creative Commons
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First, we need to understand license terms that protect our rights and interests: the difference between free software license terms and Creative Commons.

The Copyright Act of the Republic of China provides:

Copyright arises from the date a work is completed.

The Taiwan Creative Commons Project explains:

This is “All Rights Reserved.” For any use beyond “fair use,” users must obtain authorization from the copyright holder in advance.

Therefore, creators choosing suitable license terms themselves allows creators to set conditions autonomously and avoid needless copyright disputes.

Free and open source license terms are mostly used for software, and their shared spirit is open source code. Among them, GNU GPL is the strictest:

Users can freely obtain the program source code, modify it, and distribute it. After modification and use, they must also release the source code, achieving the purpose of mutual benefit.

Creative Commons, by contrast, is where authors proactively declare certain powers for others to modify and use their works. The Taiwan Creative Commons official website provides six license terms that are simple and easy to understand. Their common point is “attribution,” and implementation details should refer to each license’s full text.

The image above includes terms such as “Attribution”: it allows users to reproduce, distribute, transmit, and modify the work, including commercial use, as long as the original author’s name is credited.

Another example is “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives”: it allows users to reproduce, distribute, and transmit the work, but not use it for commercial purposes, nor modify the work. When using it, users must attribute the author in the manner specified by the author.

There is even “public domain dedication”: CC0 provides a “no rights reserved” licensing option, allowing rights holders to choose not to be protected by copyright and database-related laws, and not to enjoy the exclusive rights that the law directly provides to creators.

When declaring and marking Creative Commons, it is best to write it out completely, for example:

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Taiwan (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 TW)

But sometimes it is simplified, such as:

CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

At this point, as long as you attach a hyperlink to the official Creative Commons website, people who do not understand can click in and read the detailed definition.

Creative Commons on Ivon's Blog

Can Anime and Manga Be Open Source? Creative Commons Basics

1. Free Software License Terms and Creative Commons #

1. Free Software License Terms and Creative Commons
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