Flickr, and Creative Commons

Flickr is a great website for the storing, sorting, searching, and sharing of photos online!  Since people can share their own personal photos, they may not want everyone else on the internet to “steal” and reuse their photos without permission.  Therefore, many photos on Flickr carry Creative Commons copyright licenses, which allow for their legal use.

"Creative Commons is a non-profit that offers an alternative to full copyright."  Using a Creative Commons license, photographers can indicate what types of uses they will allow for their photos.  There are six main licenses offered when you choose to publish your work with a Creative Commons license.

There are four licensing conditions in which creators can choose from to apply to their work.  Here are those four conditions listed from most accommodating, to most restrictive:

1)  Attribution –You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give credit the way you request.

2)  Share Alike – You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work.

3)  Non-Commercial – You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for non-commercial purposes only.

4)  No Derivative Works – You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.

Here are the six main licensing types:

1)  Attribution – Allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially.  They must credit you for the original creation. (This is the most accommodating of licenses offered.)

2) Attribution Share Alike – Allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial reasons, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. All new works based on yours will carry the same license. (This license is often compared to “open source” software licenses.)

3)  Attribution No Derivatives – Allows for redistribution: commercial and non-commercial.  Must remain unchanged and given credit to you.   

4) Attribution Non-Commercial – Allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially. New work must acknowledge you and be non-commercial, but they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

5)  Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike – Allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work, but they can also translate, make remixes, etc. based on your work. All new work will carry the same original license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.

6)  Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives – This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others, as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.


Here's a cool photo I found, that is licensed as Attribution-No Derivatives.
The image of this photo is helping me to "escape" from Buffalo's rain and cold temperatures!

Photo by Kathy Vitulano