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Creative Commons and the New Intermediaries

Michael W. Carroll, Villanova University School of Law

Article comments

Symposium piece. 2005 Mich. St. L. Rev. (forthcoming 2005).

Abstract

This symposium contribution examines the disintermediating and reintermediating roles played by Creative Commons licenses on the Internet. Creative Commons licenses act as a disintermediating force because they enable end-to-end transactions in copyrighted works. The licenses have reintermediating force by enabling new services and new online communities to form around content licensed under a Creative Commons license. Intermediaries focused on the copyright dimension have begun to appear online as search engines, archives, libraries, publishers, community organizers, and educators. Moreover, the growth of machine-readable copyright licenses and the new intermediaries that they enable is part of a larger movement toward a Semantic Web. As that effort progresses, we should expect new kinds of intermediaries that rely on machine-readable law to emerge.

Subject Area

Computer Law, Intellectual Property Law

Recommended Citation

Michael W. Carroll, "Creative Commons and the New Intermediaries" (August 2005). Villanova University Legal Working Paper Series. Villanova University School of Law Working Paper Series. Working Paper 34.
http://law.bepress.com/villanovalwps/papers/art34

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