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Creative Commons
What is it? 
The creative commons is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing an alternative to a traditional copyright. The creative commons license allows owners to release some copyright rights while retaining others in order to increase access and sharing of intellectual property. The creative commons describes this as a "some rights reserved copyright."
The Creative Commons website provides licensing based on the commercial use, modifications of work, and jursidiction of the work. Various websites offer directories of creative commons content including:
Creative Commons
What are the educational uses and benefits?
- Avoids common copyright problems regarding the sharing of information
- Provides an easier licensing process for a work
- Puts copyright and permission for works in the hands of the creators
- Informs potential users as to exactly how the work is allowed to be used
- Saves instructors and students time in seeking permission for the use of a work
- Provides a wider range of resources for instructors and students to apply in academics
Creative Commons
Can I see an example?
Examples of creative commons based learning repositories in higher education include:
- MIT - OpenCourseWare: Provides a free publication of course materials used at MIT including lecture notes, labs, videos, and demonstrations providing that the use is non-commercial, attributed to the appropriate faculty or staff, and made available for sharing with others.
- Rice University - Connexions: An environment for collaboratively developing, sharing, and publishing educational content providing that the content is attributed to the creator.
Examples of creative commons media repositories include:
- Blip.tv - "Wanna Work Together?": A free creative commons video about using creative commons licenses
- Flickr - "Zoo Piatra Neamt": A creative commons image of a turtle
Creative Commons
How do I get started?
The Creative Commons license sets conditions to the licensing of works as appropriate for individual situations. The conditions include:
- Attribution: The work can be copied, distributed, displayed and performed as long as credit is given according to the requirements of the author
- Noncommerical Use: The work can be copied, distributed, displayed and performed and derivative works can be created based upon the orginal for noncommercial use only
- No Derivative Works: The work can be copied, distributed, displayed and performed but only verbatim and no derivative works may be created
- Share Alike: The work can be copied, distributed, displayed and performed as long as the use is identical to the license that governs the work
Once an author chooses the conditions of the license, the user signs on to the commons deed and is given the license code for display along with the content. The license can be expressed in three ways:
- Commonds Deed: A common-language summary of the license
- Legal Code: A legal-language summary of the license
- Digital Code:A meta-tagged translation of the license that will allow search engines to find the content based on the terms of use
Creative Commons
Where can I learn more?
- 7 Things You Should Know About Creative Commons: A detailed explanation of the creative commons in education
- Academic Commons: A creative commons group dedicated to academic materials
- Blip.tv: Creative Commons
- Creative Commons: A website devoted to the creative commons
- Creative Commons - About: Detailed explanation of the creative commons including how to license works and FAQ
- Distance Learning at UF: A listing of public domain materials including creative commons
- Flickr: Creative Commons
- Google: Advanced Search
- OWL music search
- Tyes of Creative Commons Licenses: Explanations of various creative commons licenses
- Wikipedia - Creative Commons: Detailed explanation and examples of creative commons
- Wikipedia - Creative Commons Licenses: Detailed explanation and examples of creative commons licensing
- Wikipedia - Creative Commons Works: A list of works available under a creative commons licenes
