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Cool Tool Review: Creative Commons

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Todd Hoskins Reviews Tools for Business

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in an entrepreneurial business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Cool Tool Review: Creative Commons
A Review by Todd Hoskins

Open Field by kathrynstar at DeviantArt http://kathrynstar.deviantart.com/art/Open-Field-20924389
Open Field by kathrynstar at DeviantArt http://kathrynstar.deviantart.com/art/Open-Field-20924389

Creative Commons is not a tool, but it’s important for every blogger, editor, and author to understand the licenses made possible by the non-profit founded nearly ten years ago. It makes the world a better place for both businesses and artists by enabling the free and easy use of creative materials.

If you are a business looking to include photography, artwork, or even music in your printed materials, ads, or website, you may want to contact a stock photography house. But if you’re a small business or individual working on a tight budget, it makes sense to find works available in the commons.

You can do a metasearch directly on the Creative Commons website. For example, if you want some imagery of an open field to illustrate an aspect of your business, choose your keywords, and search. Once you find an image, you can download it and use it with the restrictions provided by the license. The most typical license allows reuse with attribution, meaning you need to acknowledge the person who created or obtained the original work.

Here’s some helpful tips for giving credit to the author and publisher:

Creative Commons Attribution

It is the spirit of the web that makes Creative Commons great – that we can share, mix, and give credit to the people who influence, assist, and improve our own business and creative pursuits. For white papers and any creative materials that you or your company create, consider putting it out in the Commons as well. It may create some visibility, but more importantly it makes you more of a participant in the exchange rather than just a buyer and seller.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – There are many places to source creative materials (I love Veer), but it also is valuable to know and use Creative Commons and participate in the larger community.

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – No attorneys needed. Period.

Personal Value: 5/5 – Never before has so much material been available to mix and reuse. Have fun and share.

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Imitation

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“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”
Coined by Charles Caleb Colton in 1820 in his ‘Lacon.’

“Imitation” happens all the time on the web and is the source of much frustration for newspaper and other print media. The concept of “fair use” and “scraping the web” are terms mostly used when talking about copyright infringements for print media producers. The idea that citizen journalists can now report on news and other happenings with information taken from news sites it a disturbing phenomenon for many journalists to deal with, not to mention print media in general.

But is this type of imitation really flattering? Is this plagiarism? You’ve worked hard on your post. You’ve taken the time to think about it and possibly, do some research. You’ve carefully written and posted it on your blog. It’s your content based on your idea. Later , you discover through Twitter, or a friend that the very same content has been taken, copied and posted on someone else’s site! Sound incredible? It happens.

I’ve even seen it happen even on Twitter! We all know, or learn quickly (there is a LOT of twitter advice out there) the idea of the RT. You see something of value from someone else and you share. The RT is the attribution, the link back. Twitter has been called micro blogging – when you see something you’ve found and shared go by two seconds later from one of your followers with no RT, do you feel flattered by the “imitation”? I don’t.

I think it’s important to protect you work, your ideas, your content. The very idea of taking the time to think about, write and post your ideas deserves respect. That respect should allow you the right to not have your work copied without permission. Creative Commons is an excellent resource to help you with this. There are different licenses you can apply to your work that will protect it. A great resource for questions regarding this issue is Jonanthan Bailey, @plagiarismtoday on Twitter. He would be happy to discuss anything related to “imitation” with you.

Have you had experience with this and your writing? Do you see this as a problem?

from Kathryn Jennex aka @northernchick

photo credit: The Green Album