The Creative Commons Series – Part 4: Find & Attribute Work

HOW TO FIND CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSED WORK

Creative Commons has made it easy for you to find Creative Commons licensed photos, music, videos, and other media with one consolidated website that searches through major sites including Flickr, Google, Google Images, YouTube, and Jamendo. We recommend that you bookmark this link to the Creative Commons search tool: http://search.creativecommons.org/

To use the tool, simply type a description of what you are looking for in the search box and click on the name of the website in which you want to perform the search. You can even specify whether you need the work for commercial purposes or to modify/adapt/build upon so that the search will only generate results with the correct Creative Commons licenses (without a Non-Commercial term or without a No-Derivatives term, respectively).

HOW TO ATTRIBUTE CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSED WORK

Now that you have found a great Creative Commons licensed piece for your project, you have to make sure the work gets the recognition it is entitled to. When you use content licensed under Creative Commons, you need to follow the terms of the license and properly attribute the work to its rightful source. In describing the attribution process, Creative Commons states: “You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).”

Here are 3 guidelines for attributing work licensed under Creative Commons:

(1) Reproduce any copyright notices applied to the work.

If the work contains a copyright notice, e.g. © 2012 Jane Doe, you should reproduce this notice when you credit the work. If the work does not contain a copyright notice, use of a phrase such as “Courtesy of…” or “Used with Permission From…” is appropriate to signal that the work was obtained from another source who holds the copyright.

(2) Give attribution “to the best of your ability with the information you do have.” 

If the copyright holder specifies a particular way to attribute the work, such as attributing the work under a specific name or linking to a specific website, then follow those instructions. However, if the copyright holder does not specify a manner of attribution, it is your responsibility to credit the work with as much information as possible to identify the work and indicate how others may also use the work under the Creative Commons license. The following are recommendations from Creative Commons to give the most detailed attribution possible:

• Cite the copyright holder’s name, screen name, user identification, or other online identifying factors. Link to the copyright holder’s online profile page if possible.

• Cite the work’s title or name, if any. Link to the original work if possible.

• Cite and link to the specific Creative Commons license the work is under. For example, the CC-BY 3.0 license would link to: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0.

• If you are adapting the work or making a derivative work, in addition to the above citations, you need to note your work as an adaptation or a derivative work. For example, “Screenplay by [your name] based on [title of the original work] by [name of author], used with permission under a CC-BY 3.0 license.”

An example of how to fully attribute work:

Attribution: “Red-headed Woodpecker” courtesy of Seabamirum under a CC-BY 2.0 license: www.flickr.com/photos/seabamirum/7536483860/

(3) Comply with the additional requirements for some Creative Commons licenses.

All Creative Commons licenses include the “CC-BY” term which authorizes you to use the work upon attribution. It is important to also keep in mind that some Creative Commons licenses have additional rules for usage. Be sure you read and understand the complete license terms before attempting to use or reproduce the work. The following are Creative Commons licenses with additional provisions and restrictions:

• CC-BY-ND (Attribution-NoDerivatives): This license does not allow you to alter, transform, or build upon the work. In addition to providing proper attribution, you must reproduce the original work.

• CC-BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike): When altering, transforming, or building upon a work shared under this license, you must distribute the resulting work under the same license as the one shared with you (or a similar license if there is a new version of the original license). To provide proper attribution, you must still credit the original copyright holder and, if you have changed the work, note it as an adaptation or derivative (see the fourth bullet point in our 2nd guideline above for more detail).

• CC-BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike): Do not use a work shared under this license for commercial purposes. When altering, transforming, or building upon a work shared under this license, you must distribute the resulting work under the same license as the one shared with you (or a similar license if there is a new version of the original license). To provide proper attribution, you must still credit the original copyright holder and, if you have changed the work, note it as an adaptation or derivative (see the fourth bullet point in our 2nd guideline above for more detail).

• CC-BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial): Under this license, you may not use the work for commercial purposes. You are free to alter, transform, or build upon the work and to share the work under any Creative Common license you please, but do not use this work for monetary gain.  To provide proper attribution, you must still credit the original author while also noting the work as an adaptation or derivative work if you have changed it (see the fourth bullet point in our 2nd guideline above for more detail).

• CC-BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives): This license is strict: you are not allowed to build upon the work, transform or alter it in any way, or use it for commercial purposes. You must reproduce the original work and provide proper attribution.

For specific ways to attribute certain media, visit the Creative Commons website. Thank you for reading the final post in our Creative Commons blog series. For more information on Creative Commons and even a legal case study, please refer to our previous postings:
Part 1: An Introduction
Part 2: Creative Commons Licenses
Part 3: Applying Your License 

CREATE Legal wishes you well in your creating and sharing! Let us know how Creative Commons has benefited you!