Flickr: Recreating the Copyright

The internet has revolutionized much of what we have done over the last few years. We are a generation of "now," not we'll get to it "later." In that spirit, Flickr (a website where one can "acquire" art throught photos on just about anything) has created the means to share material without infringing on the author's rights. It has been dubbed "creative commons."

There are several kinds of "creative commons" and the author of the photos gets to choose how they want to share. The types are:

Attribution means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work - and derivative works based upon it - but only if they give you credit.

Noncommercial means:
You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work - and derivative works based upon it - but for noncommercial purposes only.

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

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

Now, it is very important that one always credits a source. Even though the pictures can be used, they must be used properly. It's bad karma when one doesn't follow the rules... sort of like being around for lightning to strike the same place twice.