DPS Technology Challenge: Being Creative Using Creative Commons

If you gotten to Challenge #4, you have had a chance to learn a little about Creative Commons (CC) and how their licenses free users from the often obsolete, overly-severe restrictions of traditional copyright. Challenge #4 has you use Flickr to find CC content, which is a great option. However, is not your only one.

Creative Common's web site has a search capability that allows users to find content licensed under one of CC's six categories. For instance, if I want to find a picture of a computer that I want to use for non-commercial purposes, and only want to reuse it as is, I would perform the following search:

I can click on any of the tabs to search with a different service (Google, Flickr, blip.tv, etc.).

Using Flickr's tab, each result will show a small "i" when moused over. If clicked upon, it will show the CC license for the image among other information.

The icons tell me I can use the image as long give credit ("Attribution") and use it for non-commercial purposes.

If you click on the "Some rights reserved" link, you learn in more detail how you are allowed to use the work:

Now that I know how I am allowed to use the photo, I am ready to move forward. Say I just want to use it in a blog post. Above the photo in Flickr is a drop-down menu. When I click on it I can choose to "Share this on..." "Blogger" or another service.

Since this is a Blogger site, I would choose that option. However, the "Share this on..." option is really only good if want to write a post about the image.

A better option is to "Grab the HTML/BBCode".

Remember to paste into the "Edit HTML" editor, not the "Compose" editor.

If you want to use a Flickr photo in a Google Docs presentation or some other online presentation service (Animoto, Prezi, etc.), you need a direct link to the image. This is not intuitive because we would think that URL in the "Grab the link" field is what needs to be copied. It is not!