What is Creative Commons?
As the Creative Commons website states, “Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.” To me, the Creative Commons is the way to get around strict copyright laws when they aren’t exactly necessary. For example, I posted a picture earlier this week from Niagara Falls.

Why shouldn’t I let others use this picture? It’s just a random photo I took with my phone. It would be nice to be credited for it, and even better if people didn’t have to ask for permission. Well luckily for them, that is possible! What if they only used this as their background? THAT’S AWESOME! Why should I make you ask for permission to use this for your own personal pleasure on your background. I obviously posted it on the internet to share! And the cool thing is, I can grab other photos that other people shared and use them as MY background. I know some people are into photography and art and want to share it with the world without others ripping it from them. And there is a license that prevents that from happening! So the Creative Commons allows us to share our personal art internationally whether you are an artist that wants a license that limits what your picture can be used for or if you are laid back and would just like to see some credit for that cool picture you took 3 years ago.

Undoubtedly, the most useful information I found was straight from the source, The Creative Commons. Their about page gives an explanation of what they are doing now, and where they want to go in the future with this project. It also has a nifty 3 minute video that sums it up for anyone that is too impatient to read the whole page. When I googled Creative Commons, I also found a link to Flickr and decided to click on it since we are using that in DS106. On the right hand side, I found that they had summed up what kind of licenses the Creative Commons had that you could register for on their site.

On the same link to the Flickr page, I was able to set a license with for my photos with just a few clicks. How did I know which license to choose? I went to the Creative Commons website’s wizard license page. This page gives you options with what to do with your work and will choose the best license for you. If you need further explanation of the licenses, you can also check out their licensing page, which has descriptions of each license.