Building a richer public domain
quoted excerpts from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, topic reference – The Creative Commons Network, The Creative Commons.org and Flickr Creative Commons
 |
 |
 |
Please Note, the copyright information posted here is subject to unforseen changes being made by the major sharing sites on the WWW. This post has been modified twice already. * see end of post
From Wikipedia:
“Creative Commons.org (CC) has been described as being at the forefront of the copyleft movement, which seeks to support the building of a richer public domain by providing an alternative to the automatic “all rights reserved” copyright, dubbed “some rights reserved.”
“David Berry and Giles Moss have credited Creative Commons.org with generating interest in the issue of intellectual property and contributing to the re-thinking of the role of the “commons” in the “information age”. Beyond that, CC has provided “institutional, practical and legal support for individuals and groups wishing to experiment and communicate with culture more freely.”
“CC works to counter what the organization considers to be a dominant and increasingly restrictive permission culture. According to Lawrence Lessig, founder of CC, it is “a permission culture in which creators get to create only with the permission of the powerful, or of creators from the past”. Lessig maintains that modern culture is dominated by traditional content distributors in order to maintain and strengthen their monopolies on cultural products such as popular music and popular cinema, and that CC can provide alternatives to these restrictions.
Creative Commons license buttons
The format of Creative Commons has changed recently. CC now has prominently displayed a description of what it offers, essentially a portal to a number of photo search engines.
Here is what CC wants you to know: Please note that search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient access to search services provided by other independent organizations. CC has no control over the results that are returned. Do not assume that the results displayed in this search portal are under a CC license. You should always verify that the work is actually under a CC license by following the link. Since there is no registration to use a CC license, CC has no way to determine what has and hasn’t been placed under the terms of a CC license. If you are in doubt you should contact the copyright holder directly, or try to contact the site where you found the content.
There are four major conditions of the Creative Commons.org:
- Attribution (BY), requiring attribution to the original author;
- Share Alike (SA), allowing derivative works under the same or a similar license (later or jurisdiction version);
- Non-Commercial (NC), requiring the work is not used for commercial purposes;
- No Derivative Works (ND), allowing only the original work, with out derivatives.”
Take time to read the Creative Commons.org licensing information. Flickr Creative Commons has a different structure and regulations. The same for Yahoo! images.
Please Beware
Photo sharing then re-sharing can unintentionally cause problems when an original copyright is not upheld. This can be even more confusing if the original usage was not a CC license. Furthermore, the copyright holder may at any time withdraw the license. The change history may not be recorded or, the withdrawal may even be intentionally hidden as a legal maneuver for possible lawsuits.
Therefore, careful evaluation of the copyright source is needed before re-using an image from a photo sharing website. See Criticisms of the Creative Commons Licenses
One more thing – When searching for usable photos (few restrictions), you will see on the Creative Commons.org website banner two small check off boxes, -modify, adapt or build upon and use for commercial purposes. Watch that your ticked selection(s) don’t change with each search.
It is easy to get into searches in different “commons”, where many photos are clearly Copyright. © Don’t be mislead by the small green cross that says “anyone may view”. Verify that the photo is usable by you by referring to the four major conditions, referenced above, or whatever conditions apply to your search engine .
Wikipedia icons
FYI: At the bottom of the Wikipedia page about Creative Commons you will see 4 icons that take you to further searches within Wikipedia: Wikiquote, Wikisource (indepth info), Wikimedia, Wiki CC as well as cited References and External Links. Lots more info to brouse.
* If you see an error in this post, please contact me through the menu tabs of this blog site.
List of posts on topics relevant to Internet Skills and Website Tips
