The Wire

Making Stuff? Consider Creative Commons Licences

One of our MOUSE Squads produced an amazing promotional video--I'd like to be able to share it with you, but the hosting company pulled it citing a violation of their terms of service.  What praytell did this MOUSE Squad do?  I'm not 100% certain, by my bet is that it's because they embedded music from a popular artist without seeking their permission.  Generally, when creating content online, you're not allowed to borrow content from other sources without getting permission.  There are exceptions--short excerpts, a few lines of text for a review, a few notes for a music review, but generally, the longer the work is, the more likely it is you need permission.  Does this sound intimidating?  It is.  But don't despair.  There's a way around the world of permissions--it's called Creative Commons licensing.  Here's a short video to explain how it works:

The good folks at Creative Commons have also made it easy to find content that's ready to be remixed.  Of course, the right thing to do if you use a cc work is to release your work with a similar license.