Connection, Collaboration, and Community: Creative Commons

This article describes how building up on the foundation of knowledge created by the previous scholars is the base of any scholarly communication. Usually scholars also willing to share their findings to others to gain guidance, approval and recognition. The user should use the shared information while protecting moral and legal rights of the authors. To protect the creator's intellectual property rights, copyright and other legal schemes were introduced. However, these legal frameworks became too rigid for users to use the shared data. Sometimes even when the creator is willing to share the data, h/she could not do the same due to copyright bindings. This gave rise to need for a supporting legal framework which protects the rights of the authors and allows him/her to share her work willingly as per the chosen criteria. The license should be easy to prepare, understand and share. Creative Commons offers the required types of licenses which are globally approved. The article discusses about the background, attributes and advantages and challenges of Creative Common's licenses.