"Copy and Paste Alert: Giving Credit Where Its Due"

Images help link articles and events to our memory. Every month when I receive my NCTM math journals I am eager to see the photo they've selected for the cover and how it relates to the month's major research study. If asked whom drew the inspiring art or captured the remarkable photo, my answer would fall short. Giving credit for images is always done in printed media, although on blogs and websites not so much. While this act may not be a crime, it is unfair to take a photo, claim it as your own and not give reference to the artist behind the work. Collaboration is what makes information reliable and interesting. To add ease to our continuous copying and pasting Flickr.com has joined with Creativecommons.org to offers their members four ways to license other members use of their images.

The four licences types are as follows:

- Attribution allows you to use their work anyway you want, only if you give them credit.

= Noncommercial allows you to use their work anyway you want, but you can not for commerical use.

- No Derivative Works allows you to use their work , only if it's an exact duplicate.

- Share Alike allows you to use their work anyway to want, if you agree to the same licensing conditions that are set for the original image.

These conditions seem simple alone, but when combined they can become pretty powerful. Its pretty cool and fair if you ask me and I will not drag an image to my desktop and use it anymore without finding out if the owner has a license for their work.

by kzakza, Flicker Photostream ------------------->

Take this photo which has an Attribution license can be turned into this image , as long as credit is given to the user and their are no commercial uses of the work. Respecting the art of others should not be optional and its nice to know that now we can use art responsibly.