What does a Creative Commons Licence allow you to do?

Copyrights

5 Things You Can't Copyright

In order to qualify for copyright protection, an original creative work must exist in tangible form—in other words, written down or in a form you can touch.

Copyrights

Copyright Issues for Social Media

Social media is becoming a vital part of marketing strategies in businesses bothlarge and small. Connecting with customers is the new expectation.But how this trend affects both the creators of original content and those who choose to repost or retweet something that wasn't their creation—remains to be seen.

Copyrights

Plagiarism: What is it, Exactly?

Plagiarism is a confusing subject, and can often occur without the artist knowing it until it is too late. How do you know when it has occurred and how do you prove it? Read more to find out.

Copyrights

How Long Does a Copyright Last?

There are a lot of complicated parts to copyright law; determining how long a copyright lasts is not one of them. It doesn't matter if you create computer code, abstract sculpture or technical writing: the terms of copyrights are all the same. With three simple facts, you will be able to know how long a copyright will last.

Hiring an Attorney

How to Find a Lawyer

Finding the right lawyer for you may seem like an overwhelming task, but it doesn't have to be if you know what questions to ask.

A creative commons license is a license issued by the copyright owner to allow anyone in the world to use his or her copyright work in any manner consistent with that license. Creative Commons licenses are essentially standard form license agreements which can be attached to a work to enable its use under certain circumstances without the need to contact the author or negotiate terms of use.

There are six types of Creative Commons licenses:

1. Attribution;
2. Attribution – ShareAlike;
3. Attribution – No Derivatives;
4. Attribution – NonCommercial;
5. Attribution – NonCommercial – ShareAlike; and
6. Attribution – NonCommercial – No Derivatives.

The Creative Commons form licenses are particularly useful for people who want to share their work as broadly as possible on the Internet. Rights granted are broad and are intended to facilitate sharing as well as mashups and derivative works. Although some creators find Creative Commons licenses useful for expanding access to their works, this may not be the appropriate approach to take with works you think may have a commercial value you may be interested in exploiting now or in the future.

As long as the use of the work is consistent with the license, a Creative Commons licenses attaches to the work and authorizes everyone who comes in contact with the work to use it according to the terms of the license. This means that if Charlie has a copy of your Creative Commons-licensed work, Charlie can give a copy to Susan and Susan will be authorized to use the work consistent with the Creative Commons license.

Finally, because Creative Commons is a non-profit organization, and not a licensing entity, tracking of uses to ensure consistency with the license grant and enforcement against any breaches is up to the copyright owner electing to use the Creative Commons license. This is in contrast with some other licensing entities and collecting societies that license specific uses of the work of their members for particular terms and are responsible for monitoring and ensuring compliance with license terms, and collecting and distributing royalty payments to the authors.