Infringement and Creative Commons
With the invention of the internet a lot of issues have come up
around copyright laws. In the past few years there have been a lot of questions
about what is and is not covered by copyright. Is anything I post on the
internet automatically protected? Can you use any picture you find on the
internet for whatever you want?
First off let me say, no, you cannot use anything you find on the
internet for your business use. You must check to see if it is covered by a
copyright, patent, or trade mark. It is your responsibility to check. If
someone else is using an image in violation of a copyright and you also use it,
you are still guilty of copyright infringement. So check your source or
purchase your images from a reputable source.
With the ongoing arguments and lawsuits over copyright
infringement, there are a lot of different ways that peoples works are
protected. The first and easiest is a copyright. In part one of this series I
explained that when you put something in print, or post it on your website, it
is covered by a limited copyright. It is your idea that you have memorialized
in print and is protected. Applying for a copyright gives you more protection
though.
So, how can you get your work out there without losing your
connection to it? Creative Commons license might be your answer. (http://creativecommons.org)
There are different levels or types of creative commons license but in general,
they let other people use your work as long as they cite and link back to you.
You can allow people to modify your work if you want or limit commercial use of
it. It is simple and free to use.
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