CREATIVE COMMONS
What if you want people to give you credit for your creative work, and you're also willing to allow people to reproduce your work? Or remix & adapt your work? Or only do so for non-commercial purposes? That's what Creative Commons licenses do! It's a little different from the traditional "all rights reserved" approach to copyright. CC licensing allows creators to select which rights they grant to users. Although it sounds complicated, the Creative Commons Organization has made these licenses quite easy to use.
Explanations of the different licenses are shown below, adapted from "About the Licenses" by Creative Commons licensed under a CC-BY 4.0.
This license lets people distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon a work (such as a picture, song, computer code, or piece of writing), even for profit, as long as they credit the creator.
This license lets people remix, tweak, and build upon a work, as long as they credit the original creator and also license new creations under the identical terms.
This license lets people reuse a work for any purpose, but it cannot be shared with others in an adapted or altered form, which preserves the license on copies. Also, people must give credit to the original creator.
This license lets people remix, tweak, and build upon a work non-commercially. People must also give credit to the original creator. New works based on the original must be non-commercial, but they don’t have to be licensed on the same terms.
This license lets people remix, tweak, and build upon a work non-commercially, as long as they credit the original creator and license their new creations under the identical terms.
This license is the most restrictive, only allowing people to download and copy works as long as they credit the original creator, make no profit, and do not make alterations, which preserves the license on copies.
Why Should I Use CC-Licenses?
As a creator: Imagine if you (students or teachers!) took photos, gave presentations, created lesson plans, or created digital art. Would you like your works to be shared or replicated by others, in or outside the school, while also getting recognition for their work? Creative Commons is perfect!
As a user: You avoid violating copyright, and you give creators credit for their work.
How Do I Use CC-Licenses?
As a creator: Several platforms allow you to share your work with a CC License. And Creative Commons has a simple resource for choosing and generating a license.
As a user: You should include the title of the work, the name of the author, and a the CC license that applies.
How can I find CC images?
You and your students should practice using CC images for flyers, slideshows, and projects. You can use CC Search to access CC-Licensed works from various sources. When see a pic you want, you'll have to click on the image and follow it to its source to see what CC license you'll need to apply. You can also find lots of CC images, including some that waive attribution entirely (CC0) at Wikimedia Commons, Flickr, Pexels, Pixabay, the Smithsonian, or Unsplash.
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