Creative Commons License

I recently added a Creative Commons License to the blogs I write on this site and on Adaptive Internet Solutions. Since this is a relatively new concept, I thought an explanation would be in order.

Creative Commons was founded in 2001 with a single goal in mind: “to build a layer of reasonable, flexible copyright in the face of increasingly restrictive default rules”. Much of the Creative Commons inspiration came from the Free Software Foundation’s GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). The GNU GPL was designed for software however, and the Creative Commons licenses are designed for other kinds of creative works: websites (including blogs), scholarship, music, film, photography, literature, courseware, etc. The primary concept behind using a Creative Commons license is to achieve a balance in the realm of copyright protection in order to value innovation and protection equally-the way many believe the copyright system originally worked, but has since gone astray.

The purpose of my Creative Commons license is to share my ‘knowledge’, but to be acknowledged as the creator of the written (as in my blogs) material. All I ask is that the blog postings (articles) I publish on my Websites not be used for commercial purposes. To me, a commercial purpose is selling the article on its own or packaged with other materials. Publishing my articles on a Website that earns money (most commonly through ads such as Google’s AdSense Program) is not a commercial use in my mind. I also ask that a link to the article on my Website accompany any re-use or re-publishing of my article, as well as a reference to me, Eden Jaeger, as the author. You can click on the Creative Commons license icon found at the bottom of this page to learn more.

Setting up a Creative Commons license is very simple, thanks to the well-designed ‘wizard-style’ process put in place at the Creative Commons Website. The best way to get started is to visit the Creative Commons home page and choose the type of media you would like to license. A list is shown on the left side of the home page: Audio, Images, Video, Text, and Education. Click the link that matches your material, which will bring you to a page specific to the media format you have chosen. You will then be presented with some license options (Standard License is the only option for Text). Click the license you would like, and follow along through the question and answer style of form. Once completed, Creative Commons will provide you with a complete license and a way to publish it.