Creative Commons

Have you emailed a book chapter to a friend? Have you found an online resource so awesome that you wanted to share with people you know? Have you posted a picture/video/article onto your social media account? I know I have. But guess what, all these things are actually ILLEGAL—unfortunately.  

One time, I found a cool picture online and posted it into a Wikipedia article. Few days later it was taken off. I researched the reason for that occurrence, and I think posting that non-public-domain image may have violated the copyright law. That is discouraging isn’t it? It is not. Why? Nowadays, there is something called “Creative Commons” (CC). Esther Wojcicki explained that Creative Commons “[provides] free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof to help people share materials on the web.” CC liscence is consistent with the copyright law Here is a CC thing. 

And here is the selection of license parameters:

Is posting these pictures a copyright violation? Hopefully not.

There are social media websites building its copyright license based on CC allows people to share photos, text, music and videos LEGALLY! Amazing! Now our friends and family can use OUR photos publicly and we can use THEIR photos publicly! Super!


Creative Commons even have their own search engine! Here is the link:
http://search.creativecommons.org/

Speaking of Creative Common, I think the author of this University of Alberta Biology 207 textbook is an open media supporter, too! He has this book under a Creative Common license!

Here's the reference:
it even has creative common information labelled!

Do you know what else is super besides Creative Commons? Naomi, because she likes superman. Go to her blog here: naomiporciuncula.blogspot.com