A brief look at Creative Commons

While the rest of the BW crew were enjoying a sunny weekend, the chief scribe was up with the sun (almost!) last Saturday to attend the Wikimedia UK 2012 Conference and AGM at London’s Science Museum in South Kensington.

One of the great aspects about with Wikimedia community is the commitment to openness and sharing. One aspect of this was a very informative presentation by Joscelyn Upendran on Creative Commons licensing (as used by Wikipedia, its sister projects and, of course, Bristol Wireless*). From another speaker, David Haskiya of Europeana, we also learned about CC0 – “No Rights Reserved”, which can be chosen if you want to release your creations directly into the public domain.

Why use CC? It encourages the sharing and reuse of knowledge; this is in stark contrast to the restrictive nature of traditional copyright, which can have a tendency to stifle creativity, particularly as regards derivative works. Want to learn more? Watch the video below.

* As it says on our ‘About us’ page, Bristol Wireless’ content is covered by a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence.