Accounts
Creative Commons
What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a "non profit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools."[1] Creative Commons produces copyright licenses which give people an easy, consistent way to share and use creative works, as an alternative to standard copyright law, which is often confusing, restrictive, and difficult to discern. If you're looking for content (like images, videos, music, or text) to use in a project freely and legally, or want to give others certain permissions to use your work, while at the same time retaining control over it, Creative Commons offers different ways to do that.
Creative Commons Licenses[2]
Attribution (CC BY)
The least restrictive of licenses, this license allows others to distribute, remix, change, and build upon your work, even for a profit, as long as they credit you for the original creation.
Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even for a profit, as long as they credit you for the original creation, and also license their new creations under identical licensing terms.
Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND)
This license lets others redistribute, for both profitable and non-commercial purposes, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit attributed to you.
Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)
This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work for non-commercial purposes only. New works derived from your work must acknowledge you and also be non-commercial, although it does not have to be under the same terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)
This license allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they give credit to you and license their new creations under identical terms.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND)
The most restrictive of these licenses, this only allows others to download works and share them as long as the creator is credited. They may not be changed in any way, or used for commercial purposes.
Choosing a license
Figuring out the type of license you might want to apply to your own work can be tricky. Creative Commons offers a free guide which will walk you through the process, available at Creative Commons Choose a License. This will also provide the image of the license you choose, which you may attach to your work.
Finding Creative Commons resources
Allows you to search for content created under a Creative Commons license. Make sure to verify the resources returned to you actually are attributed under a Creative Commons license.
Flickr: Creative Commons Search
Lets you search for images in Flickr for works by users who have classified their work under a Creative Commons license.
Allows you to filter images by usage rights. PLEASE NOTE: You must select this as a setting under "Usage rights" at the bottom of the page.
A database of freely reusable text, images, sounds, and videos. Make sure to verify the resources in Wikimedia, as different files contain different licenses.
Internet Archive: Moving Images
Short films, movies, and clips of videos which are licensed under a Creative Commons license, or already in the public domain.
Internet Archive: Community Audio
Similar to Moving Images, this provides Creative Commons/Public domain audio for use and contributions.