The Middle Distance

As a Brit I admit that'm rather confused about the Creative Commons thing. What you've said clarifys this for me.

In UK law the concept of Copyright (the fact that you own the right to say what is done with your own work - be it fiction or just a letter to a friend), and of 'passing off' (taking the work of someone else, and pretending that it's yours) are entirely separate - and the penalties for being convicted of passing off are much, much higher than for copyright violation (taking money for printing someone elses work with their name on it - Burrel could have been convicted of copyright violation for printing Princess Diana's letters because the copyright belonged to her heirs, not him, even though he may have been the recipient of the letters, but he couldn't be accused of passing them off as his own work).

I assume that US law conflates the two concepts. No wonder US fandom is paranoid.