Don’t misuse a copyrighted work. Learn about the CREATIVE COMMONS!

We all make presentations or brochures, reports or other materials, and find ourselves in need of a certain type of image.  Often, we just can’t find it in Microsoft’s limited clip art.

That’s where the CREATIVE COMMONS comes in.  It was founded in 2001 to foster creativity and create a “body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, use, repurposing, and remixing.”   There are images, sounds, videos and all sorts of other works in the Creative Commons. 

The Creative Commons contains works with a standardized Creative Commons license.  Creative Commons works are not in the public domain, and are not “no rights reserved.”  The copyright holder still retains some of his rights, but is giving you limited use rights that are defined by the Creative Commons license in a standard and easy to interpret graphical format.  Yea for easy!

There are several Creative Commons licenses.  Keep reading.  It really is quite simple. 

To search for works with a Creative Commons license, go to http://search.creativecommons.org/

Then, to see the types of things you are allowed to do with each image, you will see little symbols, which are translated as follows (see more at http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/).  And if you are super-duper curious, there is a full legal license for each at that site that you can read.  Happy hunting.

And if you want to put a Creative Commons license on your own work, the logos for these are here: http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads/  Just be sure to use them correctly.

www.openoffice.org ROCKS!

Who needs Microsoft! 

I got a new computer.  I did not want to buy Word, so I downloaded the FREE open office to give it a try.  I was very cautious.  After all, I can’t mess up the documents I create at work on Word and then work on at home.  Not only is it seamless, I like OpenOffice BETTER!  Wish I could install it at work!