In addition to my personal pollster-like life, this week our RedEye team has been busy doing various video projects. We found ourselves in need of some generic children’s pictures to cut into a spot.  My first thought was why don’t we just Google some children’s photos or images, bam!, job done. Then, it was quickly brought to my attention, THAT IS NOT HOW IT IS DONE.  We CAN NOT use random images without paying for the copyright or receiving permission from the subject and the photographer.  This is when I got schooled on a new term in the cyber world called CC which stands for Creative Commons.

After I Googled it, I finally realized how close I personally could have violated intellectual rights in using others’ videos, photos or pictures online if someone had decided to sue me. I used to just post them with a line added to pay courtesy to the owners, or sometimes, just copy and paste them without any identification. Actually, there exists a thing called Creative Commons that uses four different symbols to encourage public sharing for non-commercial uses (like teaching) and creating more innovations. If you are also a layperson like me and want to know about CC in 5 minutes. Then, I think this video on YouTube is right for you!

Creative Commons 411

If you prefer words to pictorial images and you happen to be a Chinese reader, then try Creative Commons Taiwan. I believe you can find yourself enjoy reading these useful contents and using the website’s embedded CC search engine.

Yating Chan