photo credit: manu contreras

Whenever you create something (take a photograph, make a logo, write an article, etc) the copyright for this product is yours, whether you express it or register it or not. No one can use this product without your (usually written) permission.

However, now people start seeing more benefits of sharing their work with others for use. Photographers now offer their pictures to be used by others more often; It’s common practice to use parts of an article that someone else wrote. But this would mean that you would have to ask for permission to use the product every time you planned to. This could form an obstacle, especially when there is a timeline involved.

The Creative Common License

This license let’s you keep your copyright, while you let others copy or use your work, only if they meet your conditions. One of the conditions of this license is that you give credit to the holder when using his/her work.

Let’s look at the conditions of this license:

• Attribution - You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it, only if they give credit the way you request.
• Noncommercial - You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it, only for noncommercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works - You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, but not derivative works based upon it. This means that they can only use your work “as is”. They are not allowed to change your work to be used in a product of their own.
• Share Alike - You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work. This means that others may change your work to be used for their own projects, only if they publish or distribute their work under the same exact license as your work.

It’s kinda obvious that the “No Derivative Works” and “Share Alike” conditions cannot be used in the same license, since the contradict each other.

Creative Commons and you

Creative commons can help you to spread your work. It is important to make sure you set the conditions and have a link to those conditions close to your licensed work.

On the other hand, it is also important that, when you’re planning to use someone else’s work, you check their conditions, beforehand.

Sources

http://creativecommons.org/ - Creative Common website
http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2006/10/digging_deepercreative_commons.html - Article about CC and photography
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/comics1 - Explanatory cartoon

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