Creative Commons: free art

Are you an artist and want to promote your work online in a way that lets others use your artworks without your name going unrecognised?
Creative Commons offers a solution to make it possible.

FAQ

1. What is Creative Commons?
2. Why was Creative Commons created?
3. As an Artelista artist, what do you get if you decide to put your artworks under a Creative Commons licence?
4. How does Creative Commons work?
5. As an author or creator of artworks who exhibits on Artelista, why should you care about Creative Commons?
6. What problems does Creative Commons set out to solve?
7. Do these licences have a future?

1. What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that wants to help artists share their creations and freely choose which intellectual property rights they want to exercise over them.

2. Why was Creative Commons created?
Over time many artists have realised that holding absolute copying rights over their artworks doesn't help them when it comes to exhibiting, promoting and distributing them across the planet. Measures like intellectual property and copyright, far from helping them, have become obsolete and stifle their creativity.

With the aim of improving that situation, in 2001 the American Lawrence Lessing developed new laws and software tools to reduce those legal barriers. His goal: to create a space that promotes, eases and guarantees the collective exchange of artworks to give creativity wings.

3. As an Artelista member, what do you get if you decide to put your artworks under a Creative Commons licence?
Artelista will give special promotion to all artworks under a Creative Commons licence on the site, using them in press releases and advertising creatives.

4. How does Creative Commons work?
Creative Commons puts a set of free licences within everyone's reach to help people share their work. The author, as the owner of their work, can choose what kind of rights they want their artworks to have. Now, anyone who wants third parties to use their artwork under certain conditions can do just that. Creative Commons proposes having "some rights reserved" instead of "all rights reserved", as copyright says.

Creative Commons offers 6 types of licence:



























Attribution: Your artwork can be distributed, copied and exhibited, as long as it's clear that you are the author.Attribution - No derivative works: Your artwork can be distributed, copied and exhibited, but nobody can create other works based on the original.Attribution - No derivative works - Non-commercial: Your artwork can be distributed, copied and exhibited, but nobody can make any financial gain from it or create other works based on the original.Attribution - Non-commercial: Your artwork can be distributed, copied and exhibited, but nobody can make any financial gain from it.Attribution - Non-commercial - Share alike: Your artwork can be distributed, copied and exhibited, but nobody can make any financial gain from it. Others can create works based on yours as long as they carry the same licence as your original artwork.Attribution - Share alike: Your artwork can be distributed, copied and exhibited. Others can create works based on yours as long as they carry the same licence as your original artwork.
5. As a creator of artworks who exhibits on Artelista, why should you care about Creative Commons?
There are many reasons. Some are drawn to the idea of others creating on the basis of their artwork. Because most artists who exhibit online want the freedom to share their work and to be able to reuse, modify and distribute it with other people.

Others like the idea of contributing to the common intellectual work, so as to build a Creative Commons community and develop new forms of collaboration. Because sharing is a generous act that, besides securing future returns on their creative investment, keeps culture alive.

And others simply do it out of personal interest. A photographer, for example, may want their images to be copied and shared so that their ideas spread around the world.
6. What problems does Creative Commons set out to solve?
The very moment a painter finishes a canvas, they automatically acquire the exclusive right to copy and distribute that painting. Creative works come automatically under copyright protection as soon as they are "fixed in a tangible medium of expression". But a lot of people prefer an alternative to this "copyright by default", particularly those who create on the Internet, a place that believes in free collaboration.
7. Do these licences have a future?
This licensing system has a more than promising future, and examples like Google, Yahoo! and Flickr, which have already launched search systems for works under Creative Commons licences, prove it. Using http://search.creativecommons.org you'll find photos, music, texts, books, educational material and everything out there on the web to share. Creative Commons is already the alternative to copyright.

All in all, what could be better for an artist than contributing to and taking part in a community intellectual project. Join Creative Commons and support free culture!