Monday, March 22, 2010

Creative Commons - how not to use CC

I now know first hand the most annoying thing someone who has used a Creative Commons license can do is to think they can change the type of license they have already applied.

Over 6 months ago I wrote a poem for a friend. At first I was just playing around with adding it to a photo to see how it could enhance the poem. The first image I picked looked great, even though I was not supposed to remix it due to the CC that had been applied. I therefore found a second image that I could remix and it actually turned out quite lovely. In the last week I decided to post that poem to my blog. However, when I looked up the photograph on flickr it seemed that photographer had changed their CC licence for all their photos to all rights reserved - WTF...

Maybe the most constructive thing would have been to message them and find out why they had made the change. I might have even been able to explain to them that such changes make life difficult for others and come to an agreement. Instead I searched and found a new image with the most open CC license available - Attribution only. To celebrate finding an image that is along the lines of the poem I have also applied the same license, even though I am not required to.

Check out the remix of the poem and photo here. However, I am not sure if this is exactly how I want it - so I may remix this again...

Lesson is - if you apply a CC license that lets others remix your work, it is not only rude to change that license, it also goes against the idea of CC. Once you have applied a license you cannot change it, so pick a license carefully!

Creative Commons License
This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

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