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Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization that spends its time expanding the range of creative works available for others to build on and share. What they do is release different copyright liscenses to allow for the creator of the product to say how they want thier rights for the product to be reserved and which aspects of thier rights they are willing to waive. Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright, but are based upon it, and they are tools to help create balance inside the all rights reserved setting that copyright law creates. The six common licenses are as followed:
- CC BY: license that allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the original creator work, even commercially, as long as they credit the creator for the original creation.
- CC BY-SA: license that allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the creator work even for commercial purposes, as long as they give the creator of the original product credit and as long as they license their new creation under the identical terms that the origianl one was licensed under.
- CC BY-ND: license that allows for redistribution,on both a commercial and non-commercial level, as long as it is maintained in its original format and passed around unchanged with credit give to the creator.
- CC BY-NC: license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge the creator and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
- CC BY-NC-SA: license lets others tweak and build upon a creator work non-commercially, as long as they credit them and license the new creation under the identical terms.
- CC BY-NC-ND: license that solely allows others to download a creator work and share them with others as long as they credit the creator. They can’t make any changes or use the product commercially.
I feel that these licenses sets guidelines to what people can and cannot be able to do under the creator’s vision. I think it is a good idea because if the creator doesn’t want any changes to be made or shared by anyone else than they should have that right to say that or not to say that. Without guidelines alot of things get misconstrued in the gray area .
In a teaching environment it gives students the sense that thier words and opinions are protected. These are important because students should know that everything that is available to them isn’t editable or reusable for commercial so if they are to put anything in thier blog that isn’t thier own they should ensure that the CC the creator have for that particular image, sound, or file is one that is compatible with thier usage. I think CC are important and they should be studied more by even the average joe that uses the web because alot of people are breaking copyright laws and do not know it.