creative commons licenses

what is creative commons & why do we use it?

The protection of original content online is quite difficult and contemporary copyright laws are not effective at addressing the complexities of online information distribution. Creative Commons (CC) was founded in 2001 with the ideas that knowledge is increased when information is shared freely within a community and that how an individual’s work is used should be up to the individual who created it. According to its mission, CC is “dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.” This video explains it in more detail:

For more detailed explanations of all CC license, go to http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses. To create your own CC license specific to an individual pieces of work, go to http://creativecommons.org/license/ and follow the instructions. You can make a new license for each piece of work you create, or, as you can see at the bottom of this web page, make one license make a group of pages or content. The choice is up to you. You may also choose to place your work in the Public Domain. Contact me if you would like to go that route.

creative commons stills for inclusion in video

I have created still images of 6 CC licenses. Each image links to the license type deed so you can see more about it. There are two groups of 6 licenses. The first group contains .gif images for Windows Movie Maker and iMovie HD. The second group contains .png images for iMovie 08 and 09.

To download the image on your computer, right click on it and select where on your computer to save it. You can then import the image into the video editor of choice. I suggest adding the still to the end of your movie, after the music has ended. Five seconds of air time should be enough to give viewers the ability to read the content. In the description of your movie please also state that it is covered by the CC license of your choosing.