My Copyright License?
Yup, you heard that right. MY copyright license. It sounds really fancy and like I did a lot to get it, but I didn’t (lol). And that’s the beauty of the simplicity of copyright.
…so, what is copyright? Copyright protection is automatic when a work is created. Even your napkin doodles at your favorite restaurant! There’s no need to register the work. A Creative Commons copyright waiver, or CC0, is one of the choices available to creators that enables the communication of their wish to make their work publicly available. Creative Commons licenses are an excellent means for authors to express their desires regarding their works (unrestricted access, restricted access, commercial-only use, vice versa, etc).
The CC0 I chose is called ‘ CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 
.’ In digestible terms, here’s what that means:
- Anyone using my work must include proper attribution.
- Others can not use my work for commercial purposes.
- Others can remix, adapt, or build upon my work.
- Others must use the same CC license if they adapt my work.
Yippee!
Photo by Amar Preciado from pexels.com.
So what?
Why care about copyright? The point of copyright isn’t to halt all creativity and collaboration. Using the creative works of others ethically involves respecting the rights of the original creators while also fostering creativity and inspiration. If you’ve ever created anything in your life, perhaps you can empathize with the feeling of if someone used your creation without your permission first when you would’ve preferred if they had asked beforehand. This is the same idea behind copyright. We have the wonderful vehicle of the web to be able to share creations with millions of people all over the world, so it is important for creators to have control of how their works are used among the masses.
