Creative Commons

This is the second part of the post that I set out to write last week for answering my own questions about Copyright issues in education. I want to make a few notes about Creative Commons to basically "think out loud." The first time I heard about Creative Commons (a few weeks ago) I was really confused as to what it referred it, I thought it was somehow part of Copyright Law. Now I understand that Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which has set out to accomplish what Copyright has fallen short of accomplishing: promoting creativity.

Creative Commons enables authors of media works to give up the rights they are granted by copyright law- partially or fully. Anyone can sign up for free Creative Commons licenses through their site or several programs like Flickr.com.

Useful sites:

• A listing of the 6 types of Creative Commons licenses
• A directory of organizations with CC licenses
• Compfight.com- A search tool which makes it easier to find Creative Commons images hosted on Flickr, also allows you to search for images that can be used for commercial purposes.
• Jamendo.com- Creative Commons music.
• 30+ Places to find Creative Commons Media

If you haven't already, check out the Creative Commons Search feature on the Google Search bar/ drop down menu... very handy!