This blog has a Creative Commons license. Why? Because I want people to know that I expect them to share things they find interesting, or to help further the conversation but that in sharing, others need to keep the content free, too. Because Creative Commons licenses help creators, sharers, and readers enjoy online content respectfully. So, when I saw that Creative Commons released a version of the licensing and an application for Facebook, I had to check it out!
“CC licenses enable anyone to specify to the public how they want their work to be used. If you’re a photographer, you might be happy to let someone use your photos so long as they give you credit. CC licenses make it easier to be clear about how you want your content used.
The Creative Commons License application allows users to choose one of the six Creative Commons licenses to apply to the content they upload to Facebook.”
Why use Creative Commons in Facebook?
You may be licensing your blog posts or website content under a CC license, like I do (you can see the license information in the right hand column). Maybe you use Flickr and share your photos there under a CC license as well. Why, because you want others to know they can share or post your cool photos so long as they give attribution (or any other stipulated criteria you’ve set via the licensing options).
Facebook has a great deal of content you are creating, uploading, posting, and sharing. Why not license that as well so that your Flickr photos and your Facebook photos are both included. So that your blog posts and your status messages are both licensed.
How do you get started?
It’s pretty easy! Just visit the Creative Commons Facebook application page here (be sure you are logged into Facebook first) to add the application and select your license. Something to keep in mind: “Because of the way Facebook applications work, users cannot select a license per-photo or video, and must choose a CC license for all items of a particular type of media.”
If you want to suggest ideas or features for the Facebook application, you can visit the Creative Commons wiki.
What do you think?
Will you use the application? Do you use Creative Commons on other online spaces as an individual or as an organization, like a blog or website? How did you select which license you wanted to use?
This post originally appeared at Amy Sample Ward’s Version of NPTech.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.
jdlasica says
Thanks so much, Amy, I had completely missed this important bit of news!
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