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Free licenses, part 1

I'm back, after an extended hiatus! And I'm ready to tackle the wonderful topic of the Creative Commons.

All photographs -- all works, in fact -- are automatically copyrighted when they are created. Some people are of the mistaken impression that if you don't include a © symbol, it's not copyrighted. This was the case up until 1977, but anything created since then is copyrighted with or without the notice.

This is fine if you want to prevent people from using your images, but what if you want to allow them? You could include a licensing agreement with every work you create, explaining just what you do and don't allow people to do with your images, but for those of us who aren't lawyers, this can be prohibitively difficult. Luckily for us, there is an organization called the Creative Commons which has worked to make it easy for us. (You can learn more about the Creative Commons here.)

The Creative Commons has several easy-to-use licenses that you can apply to your images or other works that will let people know exactly what they can and cannot do with them.

Next week, I'll discuss the cc-by-sa license, which opens a whole new world up to reusing creative content.

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All information on this site is correct to the best I can determine; however, nothing on this page should be construed as legal advice, and I cannot be liable for any damages if this information is inadvertantly incorrect.