Day 4: Own your CContent

First of all, thanks to everyone who has been taking part in this challenge! If you miss out on a day, don’t stress. You can always make it up, or just skip it and hop back on the wagon at any time. After all, the challenge that I based this on was one I’d been intending to take part in for well over a year. The information is still good. So if you get busy and miss a few, no worries. Do what you can.

A blog is a labor of love. Well, some days it’s more labor than love. Considering the amount of effort we all pour into your blog, have you ensured that you’ve protected your content? While there are a number of ways to copyright your intellectual property, by far the easiest is to establish a Creative Commons license.

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved.”

You may not think anybody would want to steal your content, but you never know. I’ve had content of mine quoted on other websites without attribution before, and this has given me a legal ground to stand on when asking them to cite it properly. it’s one of those things that may not matter to you… until it really matters and it’s too late. So let’s be proactive.

Head over to Creative Commons and choose the license type that you want to employ. You have a few choices. The first one is whether you want to allow commercial uses of your content. Do you want a company to be able to grab your content and republish it in material that they sell for profit? If not, then choose No. You can always change your mind and allow usage on an individual basis. Selecting no just ensures that they have to ask you personally for permission.

Image via WikipediaNext you have to chose whether you will allow derivatives of your work to be created. Can people take your images and edit them to create their own versions? Can they mashup your videos to create new content? Can they take your text and create their own spin on it and then republish it? If you don’t mind that, then select yes. If you want them to keep your intellectual property whole, unaltered and unedited, then select no. There is also one other choice, which is Yes with Share-a-like. That means that people can make derivatives, provided that the new content they create is licensed in exactly the same way that yours currently is. So for example, if they take a photo of yours and edit it, they can’t republish that with a commercial license unless your photo was originally published with a commercial license.

That’s it! Just choose your country and fill in some optional material if you like, and click submit. The end result is a blog badge that you can copy and paste into your blog. Display it with pride! If you need a little help doing that, see if this page provides you with enough information.

Even if you’ve already added a Creative Commons badge to your blog, it’s still worth going to get a new one. The license itself has been changed several times, and they are now on version 3.0. Be sure that the badge you display on your blog is up to date.

You can see that I chose a BY-NC-SA license for Teach42. Which license did you choose and why?

18 Comments

Pam Shoemaker
11/4/2008

Another great tip! I had tried to add a CC badge to my blog a year or so ago and had difficulty, and then forgot all about it. It was quick and super easy when I did it today! Thank you; I’m having fun with your daily challenge.

Pam Shoemaker´s most recent blog post.. Wordle

Kate Tabor
11/4/2008

Okay, a little more complicated for the WordPress users as it seems hard to modify the html of the template, but follow the same procedure that you used for the Site Meter link. After selecting your license, add the CC url as a link, and under ‘advanced,’ copy the image location to display the actual ‘badge.’
http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/88×31.png is the url for the badge that I picked.
Thanks, again!

Kate Tabor´s most recent blog post.. Thank you notes

Martha Thornburgh
11/4/2008

I chose to go with the BY NC SA License as well. I’m all about sharing, especially among teachers where it is for the common good. I have a hard time imagining that anyone would ever make money off of my content, but I don’t think that would be very cool without asking permission first. Learning lots. Thanks!

Jay
11/4/2008

Not only do I have the CC badge but I also like to use Photodropper. This is a Wordpress plug-in that let’s you search for CC pictures and then put them right in a post. Makes it very easy to add a photo to a post.

Jay´s most recent blog post.. Day 2- Watch for Traffic

Day Four - Thirty Days To A Better Blog « Virtual High School Meanderings
11/4/2008

[...] school, virtual school Day four in the 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger series asks us to look at Day 4: Own your CContent. The main purpose of this post, as I read it, is to: Considering the amount of effort we all pour [...]

edtech VISION - Visionary uses of edtech » Own Your Own CContent
11/4/2008

[...] Your Own CContent By Colette Cassinelli DAY FOUR: OWN YOUR OWN CCONTENT Head over to Creative Commons and choose the license type that you want to [...]

Natalie
11/4/2008

This was super easy. I had been thinking about getting a license, but wasn’t sure how easy it would be. Piece of cake! Thanks for this tip.

Natalie´s most recent blog post.. Challenge Day 4: License to Drive

Heather Hurley
11/5/2008

This was an easy one to do. I chose the BY NC SA License as well. I think in general it is good to protect your content. Now I have to get some content to protect

Lisa Thumann
11/5/2008

Thanks for the push to do this Steve. I don’t know what was keeping me from protecting my content.

Can’t wait for Day 5!

Lisa Thumann´s most recent blog post.. An Update to the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)

Chris Prout
11/5/2008

This was pretty easy to do. It led me to also change my theme as well. Check out the new theme

Chris Prout´s most recent blog post.. Shhhhh…. There’s a Ninja in the Classroom

Chandell Asuncion » Blog Archive » Challenge: 30 Days to Being a Better Blogger
11/5/2008

Kelly B
11/6/2008

http://shortcomp.edublogs.org/

Did this!
Thanks

Kelly B´s most recent blog post.. links for 2008-11-04

Sean Nash
11/6/2008

Hey hey… mission completed. Thanks for this one, Steve. This seems so simple, and yet I had pushed it off in lieu of other things for a long time.

This is a pretty big thing in a short amount of time. Love it.

Robin Martin
11/6/2008

Always wanted to explore the CC site. This made it clear and simple to create a badge for your own location. Today was a good challenge. Always willing to share, but would like to be asked first.Or at least notified!!

Jo Schiffbauer
11/8/2008

I’ve intended to license my work with CC for some time, but just never got around to it. Thanks for the nudge!

Jo Schiffbauer´s most recent blog post.. Common Craft Video Explains Phishing

David LaMorte
11/11/2008

we are in more danger of remaining undiscovered then we are of losing out on a business opportunity.

David LaMorte´s most recent blog post.. Thank You Steve Dembo

Leigh Zeitz (Dr. Z)
12/30/2008

I just posted my Creative Commons badge. I have been teaching my students about Creative Commons but haven’t actually used it for my own work. Thanks for suggesting it.