The Creative Commons

Did you know there is a whole wealth of photography, music and video out there that you can legally use in presentations, websites, etc?

A non-profit organization  called the Creative Commons devised a set of standard licenses that any content creator (e.g. photographer, artist, musician) can assign to their works. These licenses provide clear usage rights for each work released. These usage rights can run the gamut from the traditional copyright of "all rights reserved" to the public domain of "no rights reserved".

The Creative Commons has come to the forefront recently as the new whitehouse.gov website and several big-name musical artists like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have adopted CC licences for their content. For the content creator, CC licensing offers a finer granularity and clarity over the usage permissions they grant. Granting permission for people to freely share your creative work can greatly increase visibility (as a card carrying member, I can attest to this) as well as promote the sharing of ideas and art. For content consumers and creators or derivative works there are clear guidelines over how a licensed work maybe used and what credit must be given. For bloggers, podcasters and website managers this opens up a whole world of legally usable content. The photo sharing website, Flickr, now has an estimated over 100 million Creative Commons licensed photos that their users have uploaded and assigned various flavors of CC license. That's pretty massive, searchable, royalty-free library!

The following video explains some of the details of how Creative Commons licensing works.

If this interests you, I urge you to visit the Creative Commons website to fully understand the details of the various licenses.