A License or a Contract, Analyzing the Nature of Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons has helped to build considerable pool of open content. Open content has license terms that grant licensees more rights than typical all rights reserved model. Creative Commons provides these licenses with tools that make licensing easy. Treating open content licenses as contracts under lex contractus or as non-contractual tools affects the interpretation of the license terms, enforceability of the licenses and the potential remedies that might exist if a licensee fails to comply with the terms of the license. This paper analyzes the nature of the Creative Commons licenses by examining them in detail.