I often use photos that are licensed through creative commons for my blog and for presentations and I’ve often had people ask me about how to use creative commons and what it means. I thought I’d try to answer that and give a few resources for learning more and finding creative commons content.
So What’s Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that was started to help people share their work legally. Creative commons licenses work alongside traditional copyright to allow you to share your works the way you want to. It was started because traditional copyright does not allow any sharing or repurposing of content without explicit permission. Creative commons licensing allows content creators to decide how each work is shared, used and repurposed.
So I Can Use Content for Free?
Sort of. Each creative commons license lets you know how you can use each work. Some authors will allow you to use their content for free (with attribution). Some will let only non-commercial uses. Some will let you take their work and add to it or change it. It all depends on the particular license the author has chosen. At the very minimum, some sort of attribution is usually required.
How do I find creative commons content?
Creative Commons has a search. So does Flickr. You can also look for the creative commons license logo:
More about Creative Commons:
- CreativeCommons.org
- Awesome Free Pics for Your Blog or Website (Sazbean)
- Creative Commons (Wikipedia)
- Creative Commons Network
- Creative Commons Wiki
- Lawrence Lessig’s Blog
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