6w40b
If you've never heard of Creative Commons (CC) don't be alarmed, this is a more common term for those who are used to making official publications and dealing with legal procedures. But if that's right, why should you know about it? We don't realize it, but almost daily we have to deal with issues related to the license and we end up ignoring, and often disrespecting, the laws for the simple fact of not knowing them. In the 80's, the US court made everything even more confused when it decided that, if the author publishes his work without mentioning which license he prefers, it will automatically be protected by the rules of the Copyright, or copyright USA.
If you decide to make publicity material for your business, if you only search for images without worrying about copyright, you may have headaches later, and you may even end up being forced to share part of the profit obtained from the campaign with the owners of the material. Let's say you're an amateur musician and you want to record a YouTube video singing your favorite song. In order not to have problems you need to have authorization from the composer, or you run the risk of incurring penalties. Even if you make a drawing yourself, but take inspiration from something that is already known, it is possible to be sued for plagiarism. But how to obtain these authorizations to use a material protected by copyright?
This is a problem all over the world. It's no use having an email from the author with a simple “you can use it, it's free!”. To be guaranteed to avoid problems, the authorization needs to follow some legal and complicated procedures that usually involve lawyers on both sides. Ultimately, the author and each hire a lawyer so that they resolve the “lawyers” of the situation for both sides.
Thinking about simplifying this model was that, in 2001, to Lawrence Less, then a professor at Stanford University, decided to create a licensing model that could favor both sides, the author and the consumer. Also ing the project was the MIT professor, Hal Abelson, and the lawyer specializing in copyright Eric Eldred. Together they drafted the that provided the legal basis for using the Creative Commons license. In December 2002, the first license proposal was published.
The great innovation created by the trio was to make the process of releasing the use of the works much simpler, there was no longer the need to hire lawyers, and not even the author of the work. Using a CC license, the publication of the work itself already makes clear all the releases and restrictions of use. To make the process even simpler, restrictions can be gradual, with the author making it explicit in the publication what level of restrictions he wants for his work. But what are these levels?
The CC license is divided into 4 modules, each module is represented by an acronym and the combination of the acronyms defines which license the author chose. It is possible to combine the modules forming up to 6 different licenses. Are they:
Assignment: It is the most flexible license combination, which basically allows anything to be done with the work as long as the original author's name is cited. It even allows the work to be sold, altered or not, without any obligation to on any kind of value to the original creator.
Attribution-ShareAlike: The only restriction in relation to the previous one is that it requires that the license of the work that is ed on is the same, that is, the work can even be modified, but the license cannot, it must remain the same and the author must be cited .
Attribution-NoDerivations: Here the work cannot be altered and must always be ed on in full citing the author. But commercial redistribution is allowed without any problems.
Attribution-NonCommercial: In this case, the work can be altered and remixed without limits, as long as it is not for commercial purposes and the author is mentioned.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: Now the project can be changed at will, with the exception of the license that must be the same, in addition to citing the author and not being able to serve for commercial purposes.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivations: Anyway the most restrictive combination. The author must be cited, nothing can be modified, either the work or the license and the purposes cannot be commercial.
The organization even made things easier by creating a online tool where you can create a license for your material. Even better is that creating the license through this tool it is possible to leave the license published in their license directory and with that allow others to find it more easily. To locate material that has been published under CC licenses there is also a search tool.
Now that you know what Creative Commons is, there is no excuse for using that material without citing the authors. Someone has taken the trouble to make your life easier by putting in a license that frees you from lawyers, so follow the rules of what it says and everyone will be happy.
