Legally Share, Reuse, & Remix
What if you could take images, videos, music, or articles and republish them—without having to ask permission first? If you find content marked with a Creative Commons License, you can. Developed by a nonprofit group of technologists and legal experts, Creative Commons licensing is a free and legal way for copyright holders to automatically grant certain permissions on their works.
Before Creative Commons, the options for openly licensing content were limited and difficult to use. Creative Commons marks an incredible shift from those days—one that especially benefits nonprofits and educational institutions.
Any organization or individual can publish just about any copyrighted content under a Creative Commons license, whether that content is a book, an audio file, a video clip, a font family, or any other creative work. Watch this short video to learn more about Creative Commons
Content that is published under a Creative Commons license bears a licensing label that usually appears with logos similar to the ones below. The logos are used to outline the terms of the license.
This example indicates that the copyright holder has decided to release the work under a Creative Commons license. Here's an example of a photograph published with a Creative Commons license.
It was marked: 
This example indicates that the copyright holder has decided to release the work under a Creative Commons license. It's important to note that Creative Commons licensing does not mean that the copyright holder is giving up ownership of the work. Rather, the holder is saying that some permissions are granted up front and some rights are reserved. The "Some Rights Reserved" logo alludes to U.S. copyright law, which states that copyright holders automatically reserve all rights to their work (which is why you normally have to ask permission to make copies). Creative Commons licenses give copyright holders a legal way to say that they only want to reserve some rights. Looking for this logo on Web sites is a quick way to find material that is Creative Commons licensed.
The smaller logos list the specific conditions that you must follow if you decide to reuse the work. It's important to check these conditions, because they can vary from item to item.
In this particular case, "Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike " means that you can make copies as long as you:
- Provide attribution to the creator and copyright holder on the reuse. In other words, you can't say that you created the image (or wrote the article or shot the video, etc.) or that you are now the copyright holder. You must clearly indicate on your reprint who originally created the work.
- Only use the work for noncommercial purposes. If, for example, you charge people to view your Web site or want to use material in a for-profit book, you'll have to ask for explicit permission.
- A derivative works is be allowed, as long as you "share alike," which means that you must republish your derivative work under the same type of Creative Commons license.
Some works that use Creative Commons licensing may have different conditions. For instance, commercial use may be permitted; or, you might not be allowed to modify (make "derivatives of ") the work. Using part of the work or revising some of it would require explicit permission.
If you're unsure of what conditions are required for a work you'd like to reuse, you can follow the linked logos in the licensing label to a page on the Creative Commons Web site and read the conditions in further detail.
Here are some sources you can use to find works published under a Creative Commons license:
- Flickr Creative Commons
- Creative Commons
- Wikimedia Commons
- Yahoo! Creative Commons search
- Google advanced search (filter results by license)
Tasks
- Find a photograph that grants you rights to download the image and post it to your blog. Be sure to follow all the stipulations of the license.
- Go to the Creative Commons Website and explore the "Audio, Video, Images, Text, Education, and Software" links listed in the right hand column of the home page.
- If you're feeling creative, find a work that allows the creation of a derivative work and try your hand at remixing an image, or a video, or some music.
