Saturday 2 February 2013

Creative Commons - To Be, or Not To Be?

Copyright © Creative Commons
Quick question for all your lovelies out there in the blogoverse - Creative Commons, do any of you use it? If so, what advantages are there in doing so? And is it worth signing up for?

I'm tempted, but not sure if I like what I read on their website. Any thoughts?

7 comments:

Charlie Warren said...

I would also like to hear thoughts about Creative Commons; I was just getting ready to post something similar.

??? said...

I license all the content on my blogs under CC. It wouldn't really stop people from stealing my stuff if they want to, but that's not why I do it anyway. I just like the idea of inviting people to yes, go ahead and do what they want with my photos or posts. Credit me, let me know about it - I want to see it. I upload stock at deviantArt and it's very cool to see what people do with it.
I use a attribution, noncommercial and share-alike license. Share alike because sharing helps creativity in my opinion. Let people remix your stuff and watch what evolves from it.

Mark K said...

You're very brave, is all I can say.

JoJo said...

Wow Jedediah you ARE brave.....I hate it when people steal my stuff and I'm reluctant to allow people to do it even licensed under CC.

??? said...

Great. I wrote a long comment and it looks like Blogger ate it. Argh. So excuse me if this is a double post.

I don't know about brave. I just think it is great if something I wrote or a photo I took doesn't stop where I put it, but evolves into something new. People have made awesome stuff with my stock and someone used a blogpost of mine (a letter to Antigone) in a theater course she was teaching. How cool is that?

People who want to steal your stuff will do so with out without CC. I don't see it as a tool to prevent theft, but as a tool to promote creativity. Look at Flickr and all the photos posted there under a CC license. Need to illustrate a blog post? Need a reference for a drawing? Need some material for a photo manip? It's all there. Not to mention Wikipedia.

Pirate Cinema by Cory Doctorow pretty much sums up how I feel about the topic. It's a book about people who mash together movies, music and art to create new stuff from it. I highly recommend it. You can download it from Doctorow's website for free under a CC license, like all his books. This has enabled fans to create translations into a multitude of languages and to make e-books in various formats. Doctorow is a great example of why CC is awesome and he has written about his motivations to use it for his work lots of times, for example here or here

Claudia Zurc said...

OMG! I feel like a dinosaur. LOL! Sorry, can't help you there. THis is the first time I hear of this :(

Mark K said...

I shall be the perfect gentleman and not pass comment ;)