Difference between revisions of "Marking"

Best Practices for Marking Content with CC Licensing: Creators

As a creator using a CC license, it is important to properly note the license you have chosen so that others know what they can and can't do with your work. No matter what the context, CC licenses should be cited to enable their full potential as a legal tool.

Our license chooser is designed to make this process simple - answer a few questions and a formatted HTML code will be generated for you:

1. Insert this HTML code into your webpage so that your work is clearly marked.
2. This HTML code includes RDFa, a very important aspect of marking your work so that others can find it easily.

From there, here are three steps to marking perfection:

1. The full URI (link) to the license. Example: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/.
2. A visible notation (most commonly text) that states the license being used. Example: Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
3. Optionally, the Creative Commons license icons, including the CC logo.

In order for others to credit you for your work, it is preferable to provide an attribution name and URL. If your work is a derivative work using other CC-licensed material, be sure to look at our [Marking For Users] primer as well.

See Also: Tagging

Marking Specific Media

While remaining similar in intent, marking will vary depending on the medium. The following are some helpful tips on making sure your media is marked correctly outside of HTML, as they will hopefully be shared beyond the originally hosted file. Below are general examples for each medium, if a more technical explanation is your goal, please see Marking Works (technical).:

• Text:
  • For documents that are meant to be printed out (not read online) it is suggested to use a title and/or copyright page to include the Copyright notice and CC license information.
    • Sample Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2009 by Greg Grossmeier. This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
  • Here is a collection of visual markers that can be used:
    • Official CC markers: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC_markers and http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads/
    • Community Submitted markers: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/User_submitted_markers
• Image:
  • As adding a watermark or other visual marker on an image ultimately detracts from the original, a safe method of indicating license choice consists of two actions:
    • ensure that the image has [XMP metadata] support with your name, date, and license choice.
    • When publishing the image on your website or another's, make sure that your license choice is clearly visible to humans. For added benefit, ensure search engines can see it also via the use of [RDFa], which you can take from the HTML code given to you by the [license chooser].
• Audio:
  • However, it is suggested that all audio files which are licensed with a CC license perform two actions:
    • ensure that the audio file has metadata support with your name, date, and license choice.
    • When publishing the audio file on your website or another's, make sure that your license choice is clearly visible to humans. For added benefit, ensure search engines can see it also via the use of [RDFa], which you can take from the HTML code given to you by the [license chooser].
  • Also, if it is practical to do so (for podcasts, for instance, not song tracks), adding an audio bumper to the beginning of the file with your choice of license indicated works.
    • Here are some intro bumpers which you can use to build upon: http://creativecommons.org/podcasting
• Video:
  • For movies which have the ability to include a 2-5 second copyright frame, it is advised to use the same format as what is suggested for Textual works:
    • Sample Copyright notice: Copyright (c) 2009 by Greg Grossmeier. This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/.
• Here is a collection of stills which can be used as license bumpers:
  • • Official CC bumpers: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC_video_bumpers
    • Community Submitted bumpers: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/User_submitted_bumpers

For more advanced instructions, see the following pages:

• Text
• Image
• Audio
• Video

Marking Specific Formats

• To mark a PDF or other XMP-supported file, save this template following these instructions.
• To mark a Microsoft Office word document, you can use the Microsoft Office add-ins for Office 2003/XP or Office 2007
• To add a Creative Commons license to your Blogger, Movable Type, and Typepad blog, see this guide.
• To mark a WordPress blog, see Adding a CC mark to a WordPress blog.

CC Icon Downloads

CC icons may be downloaded from http://creativecommons.org/about/downloads/. Markers and video bumpers are available and you can also make your own. You may also want to include a copyright notice stating the author(s) and date of creation. The phrase “Some Rights Reserved” may be used to differentiate from the default “All Rights Reserved” copyright notice.

Marking on Specific Sites

Guides to help you CC license your material on specific sites are listed below:

Publishing your licensed music to the Internet Archive

Publishing your licensed music to Soundclick

Posting your licensed images at Flickr

Posting your licensed images at Buzznet

Publishing your licensed video at the Internet Archive

Publishing your licensed music to the Morpheus P2P network

Adding a Creative Commons license to your blog (Blogger, Movable Type, and Typepad)

Crediting Material in Your Work

If your work is a derivative or remix, you must also properly attribute the original creator(s). Unless the creator(s) have specified otherwise, displaying their name(s) and a URL (if applicable) is adequate attribution.

It is also important to credit the Creative Commons licensed material in your work appropriately. In general it is best to have a list of what material you used with the material's title, author name, and license information with appropriate links from each piece of information. This can be done in many ways for each media type.

Crediting in Video

Adding the appropriate credit information to you videos could be as simple as a list of the works used at the end with their associated license. Eg:

If possible it is desirable to make the title, author, and license a link the viewer can follow.

Crediting in Text

A similar format to the Video example above would be sufficient with the added ability to create links for text available online.

Crediting in Audio

If available online provide a "credit list" of material used and follow the above Text guidelines.

Crediting in Images

If available online provide a "credit list" of material used and follow the above Text guidelines.

Download Markers

• For images & documents:
  • Official CC Markers
  • User Submitted Markers
• For audio:
  • CC Podcast Plugs
• For video:
  • Official CC Bumpers
  • User Submitted Bumpers

More Technical

We also have a document about marking works that is more technical.

External Guides and Fact Sheets

• Molly Kleinman's excellent, easy to read article CC HowTo #1: How to Attribute a Creative Commons licensed work - includes illustrative examples.