What is Creative Commons

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What is Creative Commons and How Does it Work?

Bloggers, designers, students and anyone else who wants to be creative, have you ever looked for that perfect picture, graphic or any other created document to use in your work, homework, blog or design? If so, did you check the copyright or if it had a creative commons logo on it? If you did not find a copyright symbol or a creative commons logo, it is copyrighted. The moment that a photograph, literature, art, music, movies, broadcasts or any other creative item is produced, it is considered copyrighted. The definition of copyright is any “form of intellectual property that gives the author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work, including its publication, distribution and adaptation, after which time the work is said to enter the public domain. Copyright applies to any expressible form of an idea or information that is substantive and discrete and fixed in a medium. Some jurisdictions also recognize “moral rights” of the creator of a work, such as the right to be credited for the work. Copyright is described under the umbrella term intellectual property along with patents and trademarks.”
If you find a Creative Commons (CC) logo or the (CC) mark, check and see what options for sharing their work they allow.

Creative Commons is a company in San Francisco, California, that works with creative works and makes them available for the public to share them and add to them to create something new. If a creator wants to use a Creative Commons, there are six copyright-licenses know as Creative Commons licenses that are free to the public. The licenses allow the owner of intellectual property to reserve rights and defines what a another person can use that piece of work for.

Below, is a list of the 6 main licenses offered by (CC) that you can choose to publish your work. The list is directly copied from Creative Commons.  For more information please visit Creative Commons.

Attribution:

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This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered, in terms of what others can do with your works licensed under Attribution.

Attribution Share Alike:

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This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use.

Attribution No Derivatives

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This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.

Attribution Non-Commercial

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This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike

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This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives

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This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

For information about each licenses and to view legal information about each license, please go to the Creative Commons About Licenses page.

Are you interested in getting a Creative Commons license for your work? (CC) offers a tool with a selection of options to choose from. This tool can help you decide what license is best for you. Once you have entered in your information into the fields it will then give you the different licenses you can choose for your work.

“With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify here. For those new to Creative Commons licensing, we’ve prepared a list of things to think about. If you want to offer your work with no conditions or you want to certify a work as public domain, choose one of our public domain tools.” Via Creative Commons Licenses

Wanna Work Work Together?

I found this video on the Creative Commons website. Its a short summary of what you can do with a (CC) license and how it will help others be creative.