How do you cite content you’re using from the web? Can you even use it in your work or on your website? If you need to modify it, can you? In today’s muddled online world, Creative Commons (CC) wants to be the answer to all your digital copyright questions.

So what is Creative Commons? In their own words, “Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.” Their copyright licenses are easy to use and complement existing copyright to “provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work.”

Sites like flickr, Wikipedia, and many others are using Creative Commons to let users know what they can and cannot use and how they can use it.

Here are some more excellent places to learn more about Creative Commons:

• The Harvard Law School Library’s short libguide about Creative Commons.
• Nancy Sims, the Copyright Program Librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries, talking about CC.
• The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) discussing image attribution.

You will notice that  CMLE uses Creative Common’s attribution standards with most images we use in our posts. If you need to know more about the individual licenses you can go to Creative Commons’ About The Licenses page.