Week 6 Thing#15

Copyright and Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization which helps sharing of information across the web while protecting the rights of the content creator.A choice of options is available to the content creator,so one can choose to make content freely available for use to anyone who wants it or restrict the use to specific purposes( for eg;educational or non-profit) or totally restrict the use of your content and so on.

The copyright is dependent on the jurisdiction of the world u want it operational.And it comes absolutely free of cost.When I upload pics onto flickr,I can choose whether my pics can be used;unconditionally or conditionally or not at all.This ensures my creation is protected and used only the way I choose.

Otago polytechnic has a page at wikieducator, where they have course information,teachers blogs, wikibooks etc all of which are openly accessible for all to read.As per their license,we can share and remix(alter) the content, under the conditions of attribution and share alike(distribution of an alteration of the original work, should be protected under a similar or same license).

License creation-as easy as this
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Howitworks_Comic1

Science Commons is another project where the effort is to make sharing of scientific knowledge and tecnological materials among research laboratories as easy as 1-2-3.Biomed Central and Public Library of Science have adopted CC licensing, which I did not know.This is very interesting, especially since there is a 'some rights reserved' licensing option, which will give scientists the option of having an important say in the modification and use of their inventions/creations.
I am quite excited about this, as I have had the experience of waiting for agonizing months over the paper work of a MTA!!