Creative Commons

Creative Commons started in 2001 as a project to take some of the ideas of the open-source movement, especially the GNU Project, and apply them to content. Where many commercial audio and video productions bear the words, "All Rights Reserved," Creative Commons is based on the concept of Some Rights Reserved. Now, Creative Commons has licenses specifically designed for books, movies, video, and other content forms, but you'll be most interested in the licenses designed for audio recordings. There are four different categories of license, each granting a different set of uses. They are

• Attribution

• Non-commercial

• No Derivative Works

• Share Alike

Attribution allows downloaders to listen to your podcast, copy it, distribute it, and create derivative works based on it, but only if they give you proper credit.

tip

On the Creative Commons web site (www.creativecommons.org) there are ID3 tags you can insert into your podcast's MP3 file, text to insert into your RSS feed's XML file, and code to add to your website or blog's metadata to make sure that all your listeners are aware of the license you're granting to your works, no matter how they obtain the file. Plan to take advantage of all these, and use the Creative Commons logo on your website, to let listeners know how you feel about the issue of your intellectual property rights.

Non-commercial says that your podcast listeners can listen to, copy, distribute, and create derivative works based on your podcast, but only if they're doing it as a hobby or for school workthey're not allowed to try to make money off of your podcast.

No Derivative Works allows your listeners to listen to and distribute your podcast, but doesn't allow them to create anything that derives from your workno mashups, for example, or long show compilations that include your podcast.

Finally, Share Alike means that listeners can create derivative works from yours, but only if their work is then distributed under a license similar to yours. This license is the one most like the GNU license that is commonly used by people writing computer software.

When you look through the licenses available from Creative Commons, you will likely find one that exactly matches the way you want to express your rights to your podcast. If you have any doubts, the Creative Commons website, www.creativecommons.org, has a series of questions that, when answered, help you choose the appropriate license. Once that's done, you're shown text and an icon to place on your website and in your media, and your work is protected by the license.

The Absolute Minimum

Your podcast is your intellectual property from the moment you create it. While it's possible to strenuously protect those rights, sometimes it's better to take a more expansive view of the rights situation. While it's possible to produce a podcast that doesn't carry any rights information at all, Creative Commons makes it easy to let people listen to, distribute, and even use your podcast as part of other creative works while still giving you credit, and allowing you some control over its use. Creative Commons licenses are easy, free, and show that you do take your creative work seriously.

• You own the copyright to what you create, so you aren't required to do anything else to have legal ownership of your work.

• Creative Commons licenses are available for a variety of rights and uses.

• The Creative Commons website (www.creativecommons.org) has tools to help you decide which license to use.

• Once you've decided on a license, you can add text to your website or blog, ID3 tags to your podcast's MP3 files, and text to the XML code for the RSS feed to remind your listeners of how they can use your podcast.