Creative Commons Licencing - Who Knew?!

Today, I wish to discuss something that I have not heard of before - to whit - Creative Commons Licencing.  As always, today's wild goose chase started with a simple enough query: "How do I make my images non-downloadable."  As always, my starting point is to ask the Google Guru, which turned up a couple of techie pages which, after I read through a ream of (to me) IT gobbledygook - pointed out two most basic points: 1) anyone with a printscreen button on their computer can do a screengrab and then crop down to the desired image, and 2) if they are viewing the image, then it's already stored on their computer, in their cache, so they already have it - so it's a bit like bolting the door after the horse has run away.  So having processed that information, had the light-bulb moment of understanding, and thought of an easy solution: WATERMARK EVERYTHING.  But then, I've uploaded tons of images, it would be very time consuming, ruin the integrity of the photo, and people would still be able to crop/edit/whatever the image - and quite frankly, my time is at a premium (in fact I'm skiving off right now while I type this entry!) so I found myself at a standstill.

So, I rang my ever-helpful, very IT-ofay big brother.  He posed a complete new set of questions, starting with this one: What do I want from my images and how can I make them work for me? Extrapolating from that we got the following:

1) Can I make money from them? Well, not really.

2) Do I want to make money from them? Well, yes, but it's not going to happen directly now is it.

3) Do I really want exposure??  ie - someone needs an image to illustrate or accompany an article, the deadline is tomorrow, and no time to discuss copyright and payment etc.  Easy solution: use that image, credit the source (usually when online it's a website) and reproduce the image as it is.  The source of the image gets extra exposure, potentially more traffic, leading to (potentially) more customers and more business which would lead to more revenue (hopefully).  

Obviously, this is the scenario that I want to encourage.  But how to do this?  The time consuming way would be to edit each image, add in the website, reload all images onto various sites (Facebook, website, Flickr), and as already discussed, I have no time to be doing this!  My brother told me about a website which explains in great detail the various free licences that are available online, which were created with the express purpose of protecting online work, and would probably solve my current dilemma.  After explaining briefly the various options available, I came to the conclusion that the one I want will allow my images to be reproduced for either commercial or non-commercial work, as long as I am credited (that's called attribution) and they do not change it (resizing does not count as change but cropping would change the image and would not be allowed) (and that's called no-derivs) - also known as Attribution - NoDerivs (CC BY-ND).  And let me tell you, it was dead easy to change on Flickr - all I had to do was go into the organise screen, select all, and then choose licence from the drop down menu, and pick the one I wanted.  Quick and easy, no large lumps of time-wasting involved.  I just have to work out how to apply that to my Facebook page and my website, (although that will be a lot quicker and easier than Facebook!). 

Anyway, it's quite an interesting subject, but then, as my brother pointed out, these are a set of rules, written by people who play by the rules for people who also play by the rules.  The only good thing is that if someone decides to break those rules, there is a structure in place to prove that there has been a breach of copyright.  And I thought it would cost a lot of money to sort all this sort of thing out.  Don't you just love Open Source resources!  When I have more time, I want to explore the Creative Commons website in more detail, but for now, I'm quite pleased, and having navigated this little detour, shall now proceed with today's plan.

And so, dear reader, here endeth the lesson :)

The End of the Social Media Tunnel!

Well, what an adventure we have had navigating the murky paths of Social Media, but I think we've come to the end of the journey!  I have discovered a great tool called Seesmic from which you can manage and moniter multiple social media streams all at once.  So you can post once, but in many places simultaneously, and you are offered many more options than just Facebook, Twitter and so on.  It is not perfect, but it is a good enough solution to my posting issues (which included both duplicate posts, or no posts depending upon which time you're referring to in my trials and tribulations of syncing things!)  Seesmic has also mentioned other forms of social communication that I've not heard of but to be honest, at this point in time I do not have the inclination or the necessary oomph to explore those options at this point in time.  I think my roller coaster ride into the world of Social Media has just about reached it's final conclusion - and I shall leave those avenues unexplored for now.  I am happy to report that my venture into Flickr was relatively harmless and quite painless in comparison to previous forays - I managed to sort out my photos and upload them with a minimum of shrieking and gnashing of teeth, and I have to say I am quite satisfied with the result.  More importantly, I now have a gallery on my website again showcasing some of my work - which, you may recall was the whole reason for my initial foray into Social Media - I wanted to overhaul and revamp my website, which is now complete, and therefore, dear reader one is quite a happy bunny!