Free content

The copyright is a set of legal norms and principles that affirm the moral and property rights granted by the law to the authors (the authors) copyright), by the simple fact of creating a literary, artistic, musical, scientific or didactic work, is published or unpublished. The law on copyright in the West began in 1710 thanks to the Statute of Queen Anne.

In Anglo-Saxon law, the notion of copyright (translated literally as a ‘copy right’) that—usually—understands the heritage of copyright (patrimonial rights).

In literary law, he understands the right of stories based on real facts or characters, the characters have the right to read the work, while it is written.

A work passes to the public domain when property rights have expired. This usually happens after a period of time after the author's death (post mortem auctoris). The minimum term, globally, is 50 years and is set out in the Berne Convention. Many countries have extended this deadline widely. For example, in European law, it is 70 years since the author's death; in Mexico it is 100 years. After that time, such a work can then be used freely, respecting moral rights.

Free culture is a stream of thought that promotes freedom in the distribution and modification of creative works based on the principle of free content to distribute or modify creative works and works, using the Internet as well as other means. It is a movement that opposes restrictive measures of copyright, which several members of the movement claim to also hinder creativity.

Free culture is made up of four currents of thought: Public domain, Copyleft, Creative Commons Licenses and Free Software. Works in public domain can also use free formats.

Free Culture is also the title of Lawrence Lessig's book, published in 2004. Today, the expression is synonymous with many other movements, including the hackerthe copyleft movement, among many others.

The public domain encompasses the intellectual property that is free of all exclusivity in its access and use. It includes elements that do not have established copyright restrictions, as well as literary, artistic or scientific works (including computer applications) in which the period of copyright protection has expired. Each national legislation provides for a term of years since the author ' s death, so that these rights expire. Being excluded from the protection of copyright, elements such as ideas, procedures, methods of operation or mathematical concepts, are part of the public domain. The software is the one who has no copyright.

According to the Berne Convention, which the majority of countries have signed, all intellectual works are under the control of copyright, including computer software. The works subject to copyright pass to the public domain at 50 years of the author ' s death. The period for the entry of works in public domain is calculated from 1 January of the following year of the author ' s death, which has led to the celebration of Public Domain Day at that date. The Berne Convention recognizes the right of signatory countries to extend the period of protection. Thus, a number of countries have established higher deadlines, reaching 70, 80 or 100 years since the author ' s death.

In Spain, for example, with the approval of the current law of 1987, after 70 years after the author ' s death, his works pass to the public domain, while in the case of deceased authors before 7 December 1987, they are governed by the previous law that protected copyright up to 80 years after the death. In the United States on January 1, 2019, after more than 20 years of waiting, a large lot of works published for the first time in 1923 entered the public domain (the last release to the public domain in that country occurred in 1998, when Google did not exist).

The countries signing the Agreement on Intellectual Property Aspects applied to Trade (TRIPS or TRIPS), one of the World Trade Organization agreements, commit to a minimum of 50 years after the author ' s death. The copyright holder can always apply to his work the type of license he decides without losing recognition of authorship or paternity. There are restrictive licenses and other permits (such as GNU GPL).

Public domain, in this case, implies that the works can be exploited by any person, but always respecting the moral rights of their authors (basically paternity), since what actually expires are the copyrights of a heritage character, and it is usually abbreviated as a parent. PD (from English, public domain).

A public domain work allows the free use of its contents, can be copied and distributed without violating any rights, that is, what is released is the work and not the editing, that is, its full accessibility.

Creative Commons (CC) – in Spanish, "[Goods] Creative Commons" – is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting access to and exchange of culture. It develops a set of free legal instruments that facilitate the use and sharing of creativity and knowledge. Its headquarters is located in Mountain View, in the state of California, USA.

The legal instruments developed by the organization consist of a set of “models of licensing contracts” or copyright licenses (Creative Commons or CC licenses) that offer to those who create a work a simple and standardized way of granting permission to the public to share and use their creative work under the terms and conditions of their choice. In this regard, the Creative Commons licenses allow to easily change the terms and conditions of copyright of the work, from “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved”.^{[chuckles]required]}

Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyrights, but rely on them to allow us to choose the terms and conditions of a work license in the way that best meets those who own the rights. For this reason, these licenses have been interpreted as a way of taking control to share intellectual property.^{[chuckles]required]}

The organization was founded in 2001 by Lawrence Lessig (a law professor at Stanford University and a law specialist), Hal Abelson and Eric Eldred, with the support of the Center for the Public Domain. The first article on Creative Commons in a general interest publication was written by Hal Plotkin in February 2002. The first set of copyright licenses was launched in December 2002. By 2008, there were already some 130 million jobs with Creative Commons licenses. In October 2011, only Flickr hosted more than 200 million photographs with Creative Commons licenses. By the end of 2015, there were more than 1100 million jobs with Creative Commons licences worldwide.

Creative Commons is headed by a board of directors and a consultative council. It also has a global network of more than 100 member organizations working in more than 85 countries.