For the common good: creative commons licences

21 January 2004

Creative commons licences are a way of allowing your online work (e.g. writing, photography, graphics, or sound samples, etc) to be used by other people, provided certain conditions are adhered to. And all without affecting your original copyright entitlement.

There are several licences for content creators to choose from, depending on the degree to which they are willing to allow their work to be reused and distributed.

Creative commons licences seem like a sensible development in response to the growing amount of material that is published in the public domain that often finds itself in a grey copyright area.

These licences, as the by-line “some rights reserved” implies, does not render copyright null or void. Instead, they serve as a guideline (of sorts) as to how people accessing material in the public domain can re-use it for their own purposes.

Originally published Wednesday 21 January 2004.