Creative Commons — the other way?

On 9 Mar 2006, the District Court of Amsterdam upheld the Creative Commons (CC) licence in relation to photographs made available for the public on an online sharing website, but subject to a Creative Commons licence. This is the first known court decision involving a Creative Common licence, not only in the European Union, but worldwide, that has held that CC licences are valid and enforceable. This paper gives a critical analysis of the reasons for the popularity of Creative Commons licences and of the basic structure of the Creative Commons licensing regime in England and Wales.