Category: writing

Creative Commons, Public Domain, and Why You Should Care

This post was original published on the NUtech Ventures Blog, 5/27/2011 .

Molecules
Molecules by Jeffrey D. Deards Copyright 2011, Used with permission.

It’s Saturday night and you’re writing about molecules, you saw a great picture on someone?s website and you want to use it in your blog, surely that’s okay right? Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on the copyright that the person chose to enforce on their image, and if the image was theirs to distribute.

A lot of people get complacent about using things they find on the web. There are a couple of reasons people use to justify their complacency. If it’s on the web anyone can find it so why shouldn’t I use it. No one will notice. Check out Photos, Flames, and Copyright by Bug Girl, and the comments, if you don’t believe these are serious issues. There are so many copyright issues we could talk about that if we tried to discuss them all this post would be as long as one of those oversized dictionaries we used to use in school. In reality every single image, sound file, and multimedia clip online has some sort of copyright applied to it. If no copyright is explicitly stated you should assume that is it under copyright by the creator of the work and that you can’t use it without asking permission. There are some exceptions for Fair Use but I’m not going to get into them here but am providing some resources on fair use.

Fair Use:

These are some good resources about Fair Use but, remember if you aren?t sure if Fair Use applies the only person who can answer a question about copyright from a legal standpoint is a lawyer.

Fair Use Evaluator  Michael Brewer & ALA Office for Information Technology Policy

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center This site is sponsored by Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources, Justia, NOLO, LibraryLaw.com & Onecle. Hug the Pug!

Creative Commons and the Public Domain

Creative Commons and the Public Domain are wonderful things; they allow people the ability to reuse works without necessarily having to pay royalties. It is very important that you always read the terms of the copyright on a work that is licensed under a creative commons or any other type of license. Not all licenses allow you to adapt the work, many require that you attribute the work to the original creator and some allow only education or non-profit use. In general I like to avoid thorny questions like, does writing a piece I don’t get paid for but that will count toward promotion and tenure count as for profit? Because of that my favorite Creative Commons Licenses are those that either place works in the Public Domain (CC0) which is very uncommon, or those which do not restrict commercial use (Non-Commercial licenses do not allow commercial use).

Finding Images and Multimedia Files You Can Legally Use

The information provided below should help you locate items you can use but remember:

1) You must read every license individually and follow the terms of use listed.

2) Only a lawyer can give you a legal opinion if you are uncertain of your interpretation of a license, if you’re unsure talk with a lawyer before use.

CreativeCommons.org provides one stop shopping to search the major images, multi-media, and music sites that host content which you can legally reuse. You need to check the license of every single item which you wish to use. Not all licenses are created equally and on Wikimedia Commons, and some of the other sites, there are several different types of licenses being used, not just Creative Commons licenses.

More Music

AudionautiX All music is by Jason Shaw licensed under CC by 3.0 Attribution, see the site for specifics.

CCMixter Music and Remixes under Creative Commons licenses with the option to search Free for Commercial Use only items.

Free Music Archive (Beta) The mix here is very eclectic, and the licenses vary, but there are some real gems.

Free PD Public Domain Music

More Images (Although many of the images on these websites are in the public domain you must check each images license to see who own the rights, any restrictions placed on, and how and if attribution is required.)

Images in the Public Domain – Slippery Rock University, David Daily

JSC Image Collection – NASA

National Digital Library – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

NOAA Photo Library U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration

Public Health Image Library Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

License Your Works Using Creative Commons

http://creativecommons.org/choose/

Other Copyright Resources

U.S. Copyright Office

10 Big Myths about copyright explained by Brad Templeton

Copyright Advisory Network A community of librarians, copyright scholars, policy wonks.

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States (by the Cornell Copyright Information Center)

SectionZ

Edited to remove deadlinks although I left the names in 7/3/2023

6 Reasons to Write

Computer on Library Table
Laptops: for the Wandering Writer

Periodically the question of why people should write comes up, there’s several benefits to writing on a regular basis, here’s six reasons I write:

Better than bookmarking.

There’s a reason my website has several resource guides and posts about specific references, I hate having to hunt for links and I’m often out and about without the luxury of my personal computer. I also dislike signing up for third party services which may or may not vanish overnight. If I really want to keep track of a resource, or information on a subject long term I create a post or resource guide. This gives me access to the things that I think are important from any computer with web access and total control of if my list of links. When I write about links in a post I tend to annotate links that lead to something especially interesting or important. I don’t have to remember where I found things long term because I have it available through my webpage.

Finding your voice.

One comment which is often made about new writers is that they sound like someone else, and while their writing topics are interesting, the writing itself lacks an original voice. This is a difficult one for me because my default mode of writing for many years was writing detailed step-by-step instructions for laboratory procedures. This experience honed my instruction writing skills but hampers writing interesting presented content. I tend to get list happy from time to time which probably releases some pent up instructional writing desires.

Organizing your thoughts.

One of the main reasons I write posts like this is to organize my thoughts on a subject into a cohesive whole so that I can then explain them to someone else. If I can’t express myself in a page or two of writing on a subject how can I speak about it with someone else? It’s interesting to write about a specific topic because it forces you to do a little extra research, extend your knowledge and really think about the stance you are taking.

Other people might be interested too.

One thing that always surprises me is which posts are the most popular. You never really know what topic (if you write on a variety of topics like I do) is going to appeal to people. Given the semi-permanence of leaving a comment you might not get much if any feedback through your blog, that doesn’t mean that no one’s reading you. It’s always a pleasant surprise when you meet someone for the first time and you find out they read something that you wrote. Maybe you happened to touch on the one resource which solved their research problem, or maybe they liked the way you covered a topic. On the Internet you never know who or how many people your voice might reach, it may be one person, or it may be a couple hundred; writing should be mainly for yourself but I think if you help just one person with something you’ve written you can count that as a major win!

Practice makes perfect.

I recently came across an essay I wrote as an undergraduate that I was very proud of at the time and cringed. Fortunately I’ve written quite a bit between 1997 and now, other may not agree but I think my writing quality has definitely gone up over the years. The more you write in any medium the better all of your writing will become. One advantage to writing blog posts is the ability to correct errors as quickly as you can login and type the corrections. If you want to be a better writer the number one thing you have to do to improve is plant yourself in your chair and write.

Sleep, I like it!

This one may seem like a non sequitur but I’m one of those people who has a hard time shutting their brain off at night. I can and have laid there perfectly still breathing deeply for over an hour while my brain refuses to shut up about a subject. Whether it’s writing a blog post, jotting down research notes, or just a note on something I want to look up, writing helps quite the noise in my head so I can sleep. Sleep is good, it keeps you sane, at 6 or less hours of sleep there is a noticeable decrease in mental function of all people (no you cannot train your body to function at full capacity on less than an average of 7 hours of sleep per day, although a combination of naps and night time sleeping works just fine.)