My Two Cents Worth on Creative Commons

Overall I think the creative commons is a good idea with respect to promoting the dissemination of the creative arts. It allows authors who wish to disseminate their works a forum to do so. It also provides these authors with the ability to legally provide a license to the end users. In this sense, many copyrighted works that would not be available without the creative commons are made available to the public, thus promoting the dissemination of the creative arts.
I do think there are a few problems to consider though. First, although the creative commons does provide licenses for copyrighted works, I wonder what happens when an unauthorized copyrighted work is put into the creative commons. This would result in the public believing they have a legal license to use the copyrighted work when in fact they do not. This requires policing efforts on the part of the creative commons sites to ensure that all posters actaully have rights to the works that they post. Second, although valuable works are available in the creative commons, I wonder if there is not really any incentive for authors to make really valuable works available. Without real compensation for their efforts, there is not incentive to create valuable works. In this sense, the creative commons may not be incentivising high quality works in the same way the patent system does for technical inventions. Finally, I was a bit concerned with how the creative commons site almost seems to be handing out legal advice. Athough there are many disclaimers, the FAQs section might be seen by users as dispensing legal advice. This could lead to some trouble for both the user and the website.
I found the following website interesting with regard to a creative commons lawsuit: http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/01/how-creative-commons-complicates-the-gatehouse-linking-case/