Creative Commons

Content repositories often use "Creative Commons" licensing. What is it and how does it impact your use of the content found in the repositories?
Creative Commons licensing is a tool that helps you to give your knowledge and creativity through a free legal tool. Essentially it is “ free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved. (creative commons.org).” Creative Commons works in conjunction with copyrights, allowing you to change and modify your copyright terms. Thereby allowing you an option of either waiving your rights or setting up a copyright. If you choose to waive your copyright and related rights you are allowing others to use your work. Since we are all in the field of education, we want other to be able to use our resources to better teach students with or without a copyright.
Why would you want to use Creative Commons? Copyright laws were written prior to the internet being used so prolifically. While the internet makes it easy to access information, it does not make it easy to utilize the information without proper permission given in advance. Creative Commons helps educators’ license material so that others can use it legally. Ultimately, Creative Commons provides the infrastructure with copyright tools to make sure that your intellectual property is protected.
Creative Commons sounds like a beneficial website. How would you go about using it? Essentially, you go to creativecommons.org and answer some questions regarding your work and you now have a copyright. The website looks like it is really straight forward and easy to use. It also has a well-developed question and answer section. I would encourage educators to look at the site and decide if they want to copyright their information.
All information taken from http://creativecommons.org/about/cc0