What is Creative Commons?

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that allows artists, authors, publishers and musicians the option of creating and defining a flexible copyright for their creative works. Creative Commons was officially launched in 2001 by a group of intellectual property specialists, lawyers and web publishers. Creative Commons licenses cover art, music and writing, but is not designed for the software.A Creative Commons license allows creators to put conditions on their copyright. Traditionally, copyrights restrict the rights of others from modifying or distributing copywritten works. Creative Commons licenses offer flexibility, allowing the creator (copyright holder) the ability to choose what limitations they want in place of specific copywritten works.How Creative Commons works
Creators Login to the system of creative photography and select what restrictions, attributes or modifications they intend to assign to their creative works. The Creative Commons site will then produce a Creative Commons license to the creative works expressed in three ways. Creative Commons will provide: a deed of photo stating clearly the licensing of rights in plain English, legal code for the license and a digital license code. The digital code can be embedded in search engines and Web sites. Yahoo has a new Creative Commons search which identifies works and acknowledges the licensing conditions. Searches can be conducted for different types of licenses. The Creative Commons Web site also provides a site icon that clearly marks the creative work as some rights reserved or no rights reserved. There are a variety of license options for the copyright holder. Assigning a Creative Commons license does not mean that the copyright holder is relinquishing rights to a work of art, it only means that certain conditions could be placed on the use of creative works.Examples of creative common license options of
A Creative Commons license enables copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining other rights. Non-commercial use -a commercial license lets others copy, distribute, perform creative works and derivative works, but only for non-commercial use (anyone using the creative works cannot profit from it).Share Alike -the ShareAlike allows others to distribute derivative works under a license identical to the possession of the original holder of the copyright. NoDerivative works -A NoDerivative works clause allows others to copy, distribute, display and perform the exact copywritten works and not derived works can be created. Attribution -assignment of a license means creative works can be copied, distributed, displayed or performed, and derivative works can be created, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original holder of the copyright.Many artists feel that a Creative Commons license increases their exposure, but still allows them to maintain their rights to creative works, a balance between ownership, credit and use. Ultimately, a Creative Commons license enables copyright holders to grant some of their rights to the public while retaining others; with Creative Commons the copyright holder retains the flexibility to control the rights to their creative works. About the author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software to create, edit, publish RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a software company of wireless text messages.

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