CCPlus

CC+ is CC official license (unmodified) + Another separate and independent agreement granting more permissions.

It is NOT a new or different license or any license at all, but a facilitation of morePermissions beyond ANY standard CC licenses. Worth emphasizing is that CC+ (and use of that mark) requires that the work be licensed under a standard CC license that provides a baseline set of permissions that have not been modified or customized. The plus (+) signifies that all of those same permissions are granted, plus more!

Note that in order to use CC+ the additional permissions need to be set forth in a separate document or resource -- the official legal code within the "corners" of the license cannot be added to or changed in any respect.

If you want to adopt CC+, please (1) implement CC+ simple technology on your site, (2) add your project/company name, and (3) let us know!

Simple Explanation

The basic concept is to have a Creative Commons license + some other agreement which provides morePermissions.

NOTE: Above, the CC license should link to the human deed and the generic commercial license would link to a place to get a commercial license for a work. The COMMERCIAL LICENSE is generic and should be tailored for specific uses with specific names of copyright holders.

Here is the SVG (vector graphic) to the generic button if you would like to construct a commercial licensing button for your usage. The button is released into the public domain.

Summary

CC+ is a protocol providing a simple way for users to get rights beyond the rights granted by a CC license. For example, a work's Creative Commons license might offer noncommercial rights. With CC+, the license can also provide a link by which a user might secure rights beyond noncommercial rights -- most obviously commercial rights, but also additional permissions or services such as warranty, permission to use without attribution, or even access to performance or physical media.

The CC+ architecture gives businesses a simple way to move between the sharing and commercial economies. CC+ provides a lightweight standard around these best practices and is available for implementation immediately.

Solvable Problems

Legal

Creative Commons has solved this with Creative Commons licensing. Creative Commons has this one locked down. Rely on CC.

What is CC? - One Page (pdf)

Human

Creative Commons has structured this so that you and/or your project can implement the rest of the social part to this equation.

CC+ General.pdf - CC and CC+ Overview for the World Wide Web (pdf)
Concepts and Pieces
- healthy ecosystem

Technical

Similar to #Human, CC has structured the Technical part of CC+ so that you can implement the technical standard to be in compliance.

CC+ Technical.pdf - CC+ Technical Implementation for the World Wide Web (pdf) explaining how to add CC+ functionality to your site.
Concepts and Pieces
- RDFa and morePermissions
- OpenStar

Easy CC+ Markups

Simplest CC+ Example

My Book by Jon Phillips is licensed under a 

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/">Creative Commons 
Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License</a>. 

Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at 
<a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" rel="cc:morePermissions" 
href="http://somecompany.com/revenue_sharing_agreement">somecompany.com</a>.

A complete CC+ Implementation

<span xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">

<span rel="dc:type" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dc:title">My Book</span> by 
<a rel="cc:attributionURL" property="cc:attributionName" href="http://rejon.org/my_book">Jon Phillips</a> 

is licensed under a 

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/">Creative Commons 
Attribution Non-Commercial 3.0 License</a>. 

<span rel="dc:source" href="http://deerfang.org/her_book"/>
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at 
<a rel="cc:morePermissions" 
href="http://somecompany.com/revenue_sharing_agreement">somecompany.com</a>.

</span>

A simple example of custom agreement on the same page

<a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" rel="cc:morePermissions" href="#agreement">below</a>

<a id="agreement">The Agreement</a>
... agreement text...

A simple agreement leading to mailto

<a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" 
   rel="cc:morePermissions" href="mailto:someuser@somedomain.com">custom license</a>

<br\> Please note: the additional CC+ section in the deed will appear only if the document you're clicking to the deed from is accessible on the public Internet.

Use Cases

Restrict commercial use with a CC license with the NonCommercial condition, and then use a separate agreement with some party (could be yourself or third-party) to broker commercial rights (licensing, sales, reproduction, etc).
Require that adaptions are shared with a CC license with the ShareAlike condition, but offer a separate agreement (as above) for parties that do not want to release derivatives under the same license. Similar use cases for offering a private agreement for parties that wish to avoid fulfilling the Attribution or NoDerivatives properties of applicable CC licenses.
Offer a private agreement for parties that require one (eg for institutional policy or insurance reasons), even if their use would be within the scope of the public license grant.
To implement some type of Street Performer Protocol system to put works to the public domain or into another license, preferably more free and in the community interest.

Media

The basics of this idea were formulated for Pixelodeon 2007 slides.
CC+ Video by Eric Steuer. Script text here.
CC+ general.pdf - CC and CC+ Overview for the World Wide Web (pdf)
CC+ technical.pdf - CC+ Technical Implementation for the World Wide Web (pdf)
Press Release.pdf - CC+ Official Press Release (pdf)

Examples

Jamendo

Magnatune

BeatPick

Mockups

Actual

Strayform CC+ Integration

Adopters

FAQ

What is a simple way of explaining CC+?

CC+ is just what it sounds like, a Creative Commons license plus another agreement. A copyright holder might pair a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license [CC] with a non-exclusive commercial agreement [+] enabling a company to license the work commercially for a fee.

Isn't CC+ just a technological facilitation of dual licensing?

Yes. A copyright holder who uses a Creative Commons license is already adding a license on top of their copyright. CC+ can make it easier for that copyright-holder to add other non-exclusive licenses/agreements as alternatives.

External Links

How do you get involved?

Jump on over to the CC-Community and/or CC-Licenses email lists for further discussion on CCPlus.

CCPlus

Contents