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Filed under: Photo, Google, Search

Google Image Search adds Creative Commons options


Google's image search is one of the fastest ways to find a picture of just about anything, but that doesn't mean you can use all of the images you find on your website or blog. We've shied away from finding images for Download Squad on Google Image Search in the past, because it's hard to find and credit the creator of the image and be sure you have permission to use it. Google just made it a lot easier, though, by adding the option to search for Creative Commons-licensed images.

The terms of Creative Common licenses vary, but if you go to "advanced image search," you can choose to filter images by the reuse and modification privileges their licenses allow. If you search for Creative Commons images, Google will also throw in other images that are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation license or in the public domain. Google says it's still a user's responsibility to click through and verify that the licensing information is actually correct, but that's still a lot easier than sifting through thousands of image results yourself, looking for one you can use.

Filed under: Social Software, web 2.0

Creative Commons launches "official unofficial" Facebook app

After all of the issues with Facebook's terms of service and concerns over who owns user-created content on the site, it's interesting to see Creative Commons enter the Facebook arena with an app. Installing the Creative Commons app lets users display the CC badge of their choice on their profiles, indicating the licensing terms they want to use for their profile content. This could be a big step toward bringing Facebook up to speed with more legally progressive social networks like Flickr in terms of content ownership and licensing. It's just a shame that the idea didn't come from Facebook itself.

There are still a few limitations on the CC app at the moment. For example, you can't choose a license for each of your photos individually, like you can on Flickr -- the CC badge just applies to your whole profile. It will be interesting to see how Facebook responds to this development -- by introducing system-wide CC-licensing options, I hope -- and whether the app gains a strong foothold with users.

Filed under: Text, Video, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Podcasting, Open Source, Unix

Creative Commons version 3.0 has arrived

Creative Commons 3.0Last week the folks over at Creative Commons released version 3.0 of their licensing suite for user-generated content. The bulk of the changes center around clarifying the existing licenses, and addressing the growing internationalization of Creative Commons content. With 3.0 also comes a compatibility structure that will allow them to identify and certify other licenses as CC BY-SA (Attribution Share Alike) compatible. They have also attempted to address concerns voiced by Debian and MIT.

Since the beginning of the Creative Commons in 2002, the language of the licenses had always been based around US copyright law and "generic" in nature because it was not specific to any particular country's laws. So when it came to applying CC licenses to works from other countries, the licenses had to be "ported" to conform to the law of those countries. In fact, the core license has been ported to 30 other countries, or "jurisdictions", to date. To this end, CC have spun the old "generic" core license into two parts: "Unported" (which is based around the language of international intellectual property treaties.) and a separate United States specific license.

If you are already licensing your content under a CC license, you may want to take a look at the updated licenses. But if you haven't taken a detailed look into the Creative Commons yet, there's no time like the present.

Filed under: Business, Google

Google's creative donation

creative commonsGoogle is full of cash that they have to offload. Perhaps just for tax purposes, but also just to be good and give back to the community that gave them so much. What better place to give a nice wad of cash to then the Creative Commons (CC) during their annual fundraising campaign? Creative Commons is a little non-profit organization that helps creators of original content retains their licensing rights, and copyright protection, all the while permitting free use of their materials within certain guidelines. Creative Commons has also recently launched licensing for audio and video materials, giving protection on a whole other level. Google's $30,000 donation to CC was an extremely gracious gesture, again, showing that they do care about content.

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