Creative Commons (CC) was founded in 2001 by Lawrence "Larry" Lessig, a
professor at Stanford Law School, California. As explained on its
website in 2009: "Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated
to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of
others, consistent with the rules of copyright. We provide free
licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom
the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use
commercially, or any combination thereof." There were one million
Creative Commons licensed works in 2003, 4.7 million in 2004, 20
million in 2005, 50 million in 2006, 90 million in 2007, 130 million in
2008, and 350 million in April 2010.