YouTube Now Lets You Search for and Assign Creative Commons Licenses

Creators and remixers now have have a great new option to share and play with content, without worrying about copyright. YouTube has introduced a feature in its Video Editor that allows users to assign a Creative Commons license (CC-BY) to their videos. To mark videos with a CC license, simply click the radio button labeled "Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed)" at the time of uploading, or go to My Videos,  select edit for the video for which you wish to assign the CC license, scroll down to Broadcasting and Sharing Options, and select the CC option.

Those wishing to find content they may use under a CC license can find it in the Video Editor by simply clicking the CC tab at the top of the page. You can conduct a keyword search, with only CC-licensed videos appearing among the search results. To add a video to your storyboard, click on the 'plus' symbol (+) and remix away!

For more information, including important details about the rights and responsibilities involved, see YouTube's page on Creative Commons. You can view the terms of the CC-BY license at the Creative Commons Web site.

Speaking of Art, Creative Commons, Copyright, and Copyleft...

Copyleft visionary and Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig has just made his book Remix available for downloading free of charge under a Creative Commons license. It is available through the Bloomsbury Academic Press.

This book addresses the copyright war between an old read-only culture and establishment, in which passive consumers buy copyrighted products such as books, music, and movies, and a new, collaborative, and digital read-write era, where materials are freely shared and creatively modified (think YouTube, for example). Lessig believes that this copyright war is unnecessary and counterproductive. He argues that these two models can coexist in a hybrid economy. Without abandoning the idea of intellectual property, we need to encourage stakeholders to reconceive copyright by recognizing and embracing new read-write models that can actually benefit all parties.

30+ Places To Find Creative Commons Media

Have you ever created a video for which you have needed sound effects or soundtrack music? Do you want to find free images that you can use on your Web site? Over at SitePoint, Sean P. Aune has just posted 30+ Places to Find Creative Commons Media. This very useful compilation includes links to CC resources that include audio, images, texts, and videos.

A sign of the times: one of the resources cited is the Usage Rights feature of Google's Advanced Search, which enables Google searches for CC content.

A reminder about Creative Commons: works offered under CC licenses are meant for sharing free of charge. However, there are several varieties of licenses from which creators may choose, each with its own conditions (such as required attribution, noncommercial use, or no derivatives). Don't forget to check out the CC link for these resources if you plan to use them in any way-- part of the brilliance of Creative Commons licenses is that the terms of use are uniformly simple and easy to understand.

Link via Ellyssa Kroski at iLibrarian

Image: The Temple of Heaven, Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. From www.photoeverywhere.co.uk, some rights reserved under a Creative Commons license.

Sketchory: 250,000 Drawings Available through Creative Commons Licenses

Sketchory is a growing collection of over 250,000 drawings that may be freely shared, in unlimited number, by keeping to a Creative Commons license. These works come from SketchSwap.com, a site where people from all over the world submit sketches to share. They may be used in publications, for example, providing the conditions of the Creative Commons license are met. This is another example of the copyleft movement, which seeks to provide alternatives to the restrictions of the "all rights reserved" paradigm of copyright law.

Image: from Sketchory, some rights reserved under a Creative Commons license.

Creative Commons Licensing

Perhaps you are a scholar looking for images to use in teaching, on a web site, or in a publication. You may be an artist wishing to create derivative works based on appropriation. Or, you might create work that you wish to share with others without giving up all of your intellectual property rights. The Creative Commons (CC) licensing system provides an alternative to full copyright; it meets the needs of creators who wish to share their work while retaining the rights of their choosing. Creative Commons, a non-profit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation, provides free licenses that address "the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved." The Creative Commons web site offers a simple online tool for creators to define their rights. The conditions they can apply include attribution, noncommercial, no derivative works, and share alike (which allows others to distribute the work only under a license identical to that which governs the work). Those seeking content with Creative Commons licenses may search the CC web site. Flickr also provides a search tool to find CC images available on its web site. The "some rights reserved" movement is an important development in the world of intellectual property. It provides more content to more people, helps build collective knowledge, and preserves the rights of creators who are willing to share their work.

Image: Sheryl Dee, Hirosaki Castle, 2008. From Flickr, some rights reserved under a Creative Commons license.