Creative Commons: You are the power of open

Originally posted on opensource.com.

Sharing just wouldn’t be the same without Creative Commons.

Creative Commons recently launched their 2011 Creative Commons annual campaign: You are the power of open. Creative Commons has a significant influence on open government efforts, at all levels of government, worldwide.

Jane Park explains the impact Creative Commons is having on making the world a more open place:

“The world is experiencing an explosion of openness. From artists inviting creative collaboration to governments around the world requiring publicly funded works be available to everyone, the spirit and practice of sharing is gaining momentum and producing results.”

Over on opensource.com, we use the Creative Commons license extensively. We strive to publish the majority of our content under an Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license.

In fact, all of the images that our design team and community creates are licensed under Creative Commons. Our Flickr page is a great resource for anyone looking for Creative Commons art work. Not only is it visually impressive, but it highlights how we use existing imagery from the public domain and other Creative Commons works. It’s a great way to give back and create a resource for others to use and contribute to.

For those of you not familiar with this license, it means that you’re free to re-use and remix as long as you cite your source(s) (attribution) and release your work under the same license (ShareAlike). I use of a lot of the images from opensource.com in presentations because I don’t have to worry about copyrights, just attributions.

It may be a surprise to some, but Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that relies on donations to improve the usefulness of their licenses. A stronger Creative Commons will help even more artists, institutions, and governments share their works.

This years campaign has several ways that you can show your support and spread the word. Learn more in their FAQs such as why does Creative Commons run an annual fundraising campaign and what is the money used for and where does it go?