Julie Jenkins is a library technician at Mooroopna Secondary College, Mooroopna, Victoria, and is often approached by staff wanting to know information about creative commons and copyright. Julie has been kind enough to provide a guest post on her knowledge of creative commons and the resources she turns to when asked the tough questions.

As a library technician at Mooroopna Secondary College I get asked quite often about the rules on using Creative Commons.

 

Copyright is a minefield but when using something that is licensed under Creative Commons (CC) it is a lot easier.  The creator has already given permission for us to use their work under certain conditions. You must remember that CC material is not copyright free and you can still breach the licence by not meeting the conditions that the creator has chosen.  A great website to check out for information about the different licence symbols and conditions when using material licensed under Creative Commons is Smartcopying.  On this website there are two easy to understand animations that explain what creative commons is.  Also on this website there are some really good information sheets on Creative Commons, one of these is ‘Creative Commons: A quick overview’.   I recommend that you have a look at this website as it will help you to answer any question you have and I suggest that you put the URL into your favorites for later use. 

 

I find copyright so hard to understand but the Australian Copyright Council does have a good website and they also run training sessions each year.  I went to a couple of training session in Melbourne last year and found them very interesting (if you can find copyright interesting).  The publications they offer are very good also.

Thankyou, Julie, for providing Bright Ideas readers with this post and useful links. Makeuseof published a post in April on ‘How to find creative commons content with Google’. This will also help us in trying to make sure we aren’t in breach of anything!