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What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons (CC) is an internationally active, non-profit organization that provides free licences for creators to use so they can make their work available to the public. These licences allow creators to give permission for others to use their work under certain conditions.
Every time a work is created, such as when a journal article is written or a photograph taken, that work is automatically protected by copyright. Copyright protection prevents others from using the work in certain ways, such as copying the work or putting the work online.
A CC licence allows the creator of a work to select how they want others to use the work. When a creator releases their work under a CC licence, members of the public know what they can and can’t do with the work. This means that they only need to seek the creator’s permission when they want to use the work in a way not permitted by the licence.
The great thing is that all CC licences allow works to be used for educational purposes. As a result, teachers and students can freely copy, share, and sometimes modify and remix a CC work without having seeking the permission of the creator.
Discussion Prompts
The background of Creative Commons as well as the video resources below should help in furthering your understanding of the non-profit organization and why it is so critical and valuable to open education.
- Have you had experience with Creative Commons?
- If so, provide an example of what you have done using Creative Commons.[1]
Resources
Video: Wanna Work Together? [New Tab]: This video provides a basic introduction to Creative Commons (video length is 3:00).
Video: A Shared Culture [New Tab]: In this video, some of the leading thinkers behind Creative Commons describe how the organization is helping “save the world from failed sharing” through free tools that enable creators to easily make their work available to the public for legal sharing and remixing (video length is 3:20).
- What is Creative Commons? by Smartcopying is licensed under CC BY. ↵