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What Is CreatIve Commons? If you’re an artist, student, educator, scientist, or other
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that works to creator looking for content that you can freely and legally
increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational, and use, there is a giant pool of CC-licensed creativity available
scientific content) available in “the commons”—the body of to you. there are many millions of works—from songs and
work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, videos to scientific and academic content—that you can
use, repurposing, and remixing. use under the terms of their copyright licenses.
hoW Does CreatIve Commons Work? Who Uses CreatIve Commons LICenses?
Creative Commons provides free, easy-to-use legal tools Major media and technology companies, leading
that give everyone from individual “user generated content” universities, top scientists, and world-renowned artists
creators to major companies and institutions a simple, all take advantage of the Creative Commons approach
standardized way to pre-clear usage rights to creative work to copyright. Most importantly, there are millions of
to which they own the copyright. CC licenses let people “regular” people around the world who use CC licenses to
easily change their copyright terms from the default of “all help increase the depth, breadth, and quality of creativity
rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” that is available to everyone for free and legal use.
Creative Commons licenses are not an alternative to copy Why Does merLot sUpport CreatIve Commons?
right. they apply on top of copyright, so you can modify your
copyright terms to best suit your needs. Creative Commons MerLot recognizes the effort and commitment of the many
collaborated with copyright experts all around the world to different kinds of MerLot community members who partici
ensure that their licenses work globally. pate in building and sustaining the repository and services
that comprise MerLot. MerLot has adopted the intellec
Getting a Creative Commons license is easy. Visit their Web tual property protection policies of Creative Commons to:
site at creativecommons.org and click “License Your Work.”
Based on your answers to a few quick questions, they’ll give 1) encourage creators of online materials to share
you a license that clearly communicates to people what you their work with others who might wish to reuse
will and won’t allow them to do with your creativity. It only the materials in creative ways; and
takes a few minutes, and it’s totally free. their Web site also 2) ensure that contributions of online materials by
contains an faQ that answers many of the most common MerLot members to the MerLot community are
questions about how CC licenses work. protected from misuse and abuse.
What Can CreatIve Commons Do for me? MerLot support includes:
If you’ve created something and want people to know 1) a detailed description of Creative Commons
that you’re happy to have them share, use, and build upon integration into the MerLot acceptable Use Policy
your work, you should consider publishing under a Creative (http://taste.merlot.org/acceptableuserpolicy.html);
Commons license. CC’s legal infrastructure gives you
flexibility (for example, you can choose to only pre-clear 2) Incorporation of CC license metadata for all materials
noncommercial uses) and protects the people who use submitted to the MerLot repository; and
your work (so that they don’t have to worry about copyright
infringement, as long as they abide by the terms you 3) Invitations to all authors of materials in the repository
have specified). to use CC licenses for all their creative online work.
More InforMatIon
email: webmaster@merlot.org
Visit http://www.merlot.org or http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Share, reuse, and remix - legally. except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under
www.creativecommons.org http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/