Mission:
To offer authors, artists, and educators a voluntary "some rights reserved" approach to copyright.

Background:
Launched in 2001 by Stanford Law School professor Lawrence Lessig, who also founded its Center for Internet and Society, with funding from the Center for the Public Domain, Creative Commons provides free copyright licenses enabling anyone — without a lawyer — to designate certain uses of their creative works, such as copying and distributing them, while restricting other uses. The initial set of Creative Commons licenses, published in December 2002, was written with the U.S. legal system in mind; they pertain only to copyrighted works and fall midway between full copyright (all rights reserved) and the public domain (no rights reserved). Major funders include the William & Flora Hewlett, John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur, and Open Society foundations, and the Omidyar Network Fund.

Outstanding Web Features:
Creative Commons licenses are available in three different formats available on the Web site's Publish page — the Commons Deed (human-readable code), Legal Code (lawyer-readable code); and metadata (machine-readable code). The Web site also supplies information specific to obtaining a Creative Commons license for works categorized as audio, images, video, text, or education, including lesson plans, course packets, and textbooks; and it provides a database of existing Creative Commons audio, images, text, video, and other formats that are free to share online; tools and resources; short movies about Creative Commons; and frequently asked questions.

Funding:
Creative Commons is supported primarily by corporate and foundation grants.