Set your blog free with a Creative Commons license.
I received an email this afternoon asking me if it would be okay if they reproduced my post on the Amazon Simple Storage solution on their site. Well, I didn’t see an immediate problem with this but after asking around on some forums I frequent I found at that if I don’t include some kind of license then they would have free rein to do what they want with my work; I decided I needed something to protect myself.
I’ve heard and read over the Creative Commons license before and I’ve seen it on popular sites like Flickr so I figured I would have another look over it. After researching it over at their site and on other places on the web I decided I would apply the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License to my blog. I think this license fits what I want to offer to the community the best. It allows people to use my stuff on their site while still protecting my work. This particular license says that my work can’t be used for commercial purposes and if anything is used that it must include a link back to the original article. There is some other stuff included but one thing that is great about Creative Commons is how they give you a human readable version so peons such as myself can understand them.
When you have a chance I suggest everyone visit the Creative Commons site and read what it’s all about. It doesn’t hurt to apply a license to your content so I strongly suggest everyone does it.
Photo courtesy of Matthias Mehldau
Comments, Questions, Suggestions...
Thanks CTI97(No name?) for your comment but I think you’re the one that’s confused. A Creative Commons License is a copyright, it’s a type of copyright that allows you to release your work while still maintaining ownership and partial or all of the rights(depending on how you set the license up). I never mislead any user, I gave them the information they will need to make their own discussion and everything I’ve stated in this post is true.
A copyright is not something that is used if you plan to sue, a copyright by definition is “The legal right granted to an author, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to exclusive publication, production, sale, or distribution of a literary, musical, dramatic, or artistic work.”. This means that when I copyright something I am granted the legal right to the work, this in no way says I’m going to sue people for using it all though it does give me the right to if it’s violated.
The reason why I’m not using a traditional copyright is because I don’t mind if people use my work but I want some recognition for it. I don’t want people stealing my work and passing it off as their own nor do I want my work used for monetary gain without my permission, thus the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.
I think you need to browse on over to the Creative Commons site and read more about what their license provides. If you have any other questions or comments feel free to post them back up.
-Ryan
You have both copyright and creative commons in the footer. Please make up your mind about witch licence you should use and don’t mislead your users. maybe you need to learn some more about open licences, as it’s not simply a text, but a mentality. if you “need to protect yourself” then just use copyright and forget about creative commons. Copyright is the licence if you ever want to sue and be mad at ppl for sharing. If you want to share and be open then just be so (don’t matter if you show copyright on the footer or cc, as you will not use it to sue others)