Tech Tips for the Week of November 2 - Creative Commons Images

This Week's Tech Tip - Using Creative Commons Images

Many teachers and students are already familiar with the ease of searching for images on Google Images and then copying and pasting those images in documents and presentations.  There's just one problem with doing so.  Very seldom do we check to see if, in fact, this is legal.  Many - if not most- of the images that one might find on Google Images are subject to copyright, so using them in our own publications, without first asking for permission from the content provider, is neither legal nor moral.


Of course, as educators, we have an obligation to direct students to responsible, moral behaviour wherever possible.  So what's the solution?  The answer lies in using pictures which have been distributed with a Creative Commons license and finding a means to search for pictures which fall under that license.



If you already understand the concept behind Creative Commons (CC) licensing, then skip this paragraph.  For those of you who may not know, Creative Commons is a licensing scheme which allows the content provider to specify exactly how others may use his/her work.  While this week's tech tip focuses on visual content, CC licensing may also apply to musical or multimedia works.  When considering Creative Commons works, it's beneficial to familiarize oneself with the symbols used.

Symbol	Meaning
	Attribution: All Creative Commons works expect, quite reasonably, that the user will attribute the work to the source. In other words, the user is expected to give credit to the content creator.
	Share Alike: Works with this attribute may be copied, altered and used in derivative works, but those works can only be distributed under the same Creative Commons license as the original(s).
	Non-Commercial: Works with this attribute may not be used for commercial purposes.
	No Derivative Works: Works with this attribute may be copied and used, but they may not be altered or re-mixed in any way; they must appear in their original state.

These symbols can be combined in a number of ways. So, a work which has the following symbols associated with it:

• would require the user to give credit to the creator
• could not be used for commercial purposes, and,
• because of the absence of the "No Derivative Works" symbol, can be altered and used in forms other than in its original state.
• However, anything we create using this work is bound by the same Creative Commons license as the image itself.  For example, if we were to create a derivative image, we could not allow others to use that image for commercial purposes.
  

How to Find and Acknowledge Creative Commons Images

These two video tutorials will walk you through two strategies for finding and using Creative Commons images from the Internet:

• Searching Flickr.com using Compfight.com
• Using Firefox's Creative Commons search tool