Free Website Content
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization
that allows artists, authors, publishers and musicians
the option of creating and defining a flexible copyright
for their creative works. Creative Commons was officially
launched in 2001 by a group of intellectual property
experts, lawyers and web publishers. Creative Commons
licenses cover art, music, and writing, but is not designed
for software.
A Creative Commons license allows creators
to place conditions on their copyrights. Traditionally,
copyrights restrict the rights of others from modifying
or distributing copywritten works. Creative Commons
licenses offer flexibility by allowing the creator (copyright
holder) the ability to choose what limitations they
want in place with respect to specific copywritten works.
How Creative Commons Works
Creators login to the Creative Commons System and
select what restrictions, attributes or modifications
they wish to assign to their creative works.
The Creative Commons site will then produce
a Creative Commons license for the creative works expressed
in three ways. Creative Commons will provide: a commons
deed clearly stating the licensing rights in plain English,
legal code for the license, and a digital license code.
The digital code can be embedded into websites and search
engines. Yahoo has a new Creative Commons search which
identifies works and recognizes any licensing conditions.
Searches can be conducted for different types of licenses.
The Creative Commons site also provides a website icon
that clearly marks the creative work as Some Rights
Reserved or No Rights Reserved.
A variety of license options exist for
the copyright holder. Assigning a Creative Commons license
does not mean that the copyright holder is relinquishing
rights to a piece of art, it merely means some conditions
could be placed on the use of creative works.
Examples of Creative Common License
Options
A Creative Commons license enables copyright holders
to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining
other rights.
NonCommercial - A non-commercial
license lets others copy, distribute, perform creative
works and derivative works, but only for noncommercial
purposes (anyone using the creative works cannot profit
from it).
ShareAlike - A ShareAlike
license allows others to distribute derivative works
under a license identical to the one held by the original
copyright holder.
NoDerivative Works - A NoDerivative
Works clause allows others to copy, distribute, display
and perform the exact copywritten works and no derivative
works can be created.
Attribution - An Attribution
license means creative works can be copied, distributed,
displayed, or performed and derivative works can be
created, provided that appropriate credit to the original
copyright holder is given.
Many artists feel that a Creative Commons
license increases their exposure but still allows them
to retain their rights to the creative works, striking
a balance between ownership, credit and use. Ultimately,
a Creative Commons license enables copyright holders
to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining
others; with Creative Commons the copyright holder retains
the flexibility to control the rights to their creative
works.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds
and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for
NotePage http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
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be greatly appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
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