Because of a brilliant movement called Creative Commons, you can be creative on your blog and still live guilt free.
The subject of copyright abuse has come up many times here on ActiveRain. I know others have probably written about this exact topic, but I have never given it much thought, since I subscribe to some pricey stock photo services and like to write my own stuff.
The Project Blogger effect: how to videos
When the Project Blogger process began, Julie Ferenzi wanted to know where to find good, free, stock photo content for her Living In Plainfield Illinois blog. She's not alone. We get this question a great deal at our customer service desk. So, since Julie and I are thousands of miles away from each other, sometimes we talk on the phone, sometimes via IM, sometimes we use GoToMeeting so I can show her what I'm talking about, and sometimes I just record what I'm doing on screen. I'm finding that doing the latter not only allows me to help Julie, but others as well.
The three photos you see here on the side were found using a Creative Commons only advanced search on Flickr. The search term was "house" and I limited the search to only Creative Commons-licensed photos. I also limited the search to those I could use commercially and could modify, adapt or build upon. Adding the borders, in my opinion, is modifying. That's probably open for some debate. It looks like this:
All of the photos photos found in the search simply require that I give credit to the phtographer. This is called attribution. I have done so for these three at the bottom of this post.
Some Creative Commons licenses require attribution and can be shared freely. Others forbid commercial use or forbid that any derivatives be made from them. These rights are clearly spelled out in each flickr members account and a full resource for Creative Commons definitions as they pertain to Flickr can be found here.
So, to I decided to kill three birds with one stone on this one. I wanted
to answer questions about photos that come into our customer service desk, help Julie locate good photos for her blog and share the information with you as well. You're going to be seeing a lot more of these "How To" videos come down the pike from me.
Watch the Flickr Creative Commons Search How To Video.
Want To Know The History Of Creative Commons?
This is a very creative video about the history. It's a great video, really. It's actually inspirational. I have been playing it in the background as I write this post... as inspiration.
The Creative Commons movement brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "taking creative license." :)
Photos: Crab by Drown, Houses by eymon, White House by TopTechWriter.US
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Thanks Jeff, Being a newbie this is all very useful information for me. I look forward to putting it into practice soon.