MU Talk

Creative Commons License 4UR Flickr?

I was surfing through the Medici University photo group on Flickr, looking for images to use with a new post in Astrid’s April A-2-Z Challenge, and was disappointed to discover that the majority of photos there are “© All Rights Reserved” and can’t be used by anyone for anything. 🙁

I realize a lot of MU Learners are very controlling (ha! It’s like D/s University around here!) but it also occurred to me that some MU peeps might simply not know that Flickr defaults to ©ARR and that it’s so easy to set it for a creative commons sharing license under the terms of your choice. I’ll show you the how first and then say a bit about the why at bottom.

You can go straight to your “Default License” settings here:
https://www.flickr.com/account/prefs/license

When you’re logged in to Flickr, in the upper-right is a little icon of you – click it to get a box with a few choices, and then click “Settings”

On the Settings page, click the PRIVACY & PERMISSIONS tab

Then scroll down to DEFAULT FOR NEW UPLOADS and click on WHAT LICENSE WILL YOUR CONTENT HAVE

Then pick the license of your choice: ©, Public Domain, or 1 of the 6 Creative Commons licenses.
Or scroll down further for more info…

At the bottom Flickr has explanations of CC Licensing, how to set them, and links for more info.

You can go straight to your “Default License” settings here:
https://www.flickr.com/account/prefs/license

License Per Image

Note that you can still set the License for any given image to anything you want, either when you upload it, or on the photo’s page, or with Flickr bulk editing tools. But this sets what the default license for your work will be for your most-of-the-time use.

Make Ryan’s Life Easier

The most important reason to choose a Creative Commons license is so that Ryan can pirate I mean use present your work with respect, admiration, and “attribution,” as in your name and a link back to your Flickr.

There are a ton of different perspectives on Copyright and I’m sure I don’t know them all. Lots of opinions out there, and you’re welcome to yours. Artists do make money with copyright, so that’s cool. But to a large degree Copyright is the way old, 20th century media locks down culture and prevents the freedom of the Internet from being, well, the freedom of the Internet.

Creative Commons Attribution

Among the 6 CC Licenses, my personal favorite is the least restrictive, CC Attribution. Just take my stuff and use it. Run! Knock yourself out.

Creative Commons Non-Commercial

Many peeps like the CC Non-Commercial license. This says if you’re like me (another YouTube remixer, another MU Learner, etc) doing it for fun and not for profit, then go for it! But if you’re NBC or the New York Times, yeah, you can still pay me! 😀

The Full Story

Want a better explanation of what your license choices mean? Go here:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Or watch this: