All original works on this blog (images and text) are protected by copyright, and all these works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License, unless otherwise noted.
Click on the license badge above for more information. This license allows anyone to share my work with others, even modify it, as long as I am given credit (i.e., attribution) and it is distributed in a non-commercial manner. Furthermore, this license should always accompany the work, so every recipient can enjoy the same options.
For those not familiar with Creative Commons, the FAQ is a good place to start. CC provides a flexible model for creators to license original works while retaining copyright, and is ideally suited for use with digital media on the Web. The licensing options available range from the classic “All Rights Reserved” all the way to the “Public Domain” license, with myriad versions in between.
I’m not a professional photographer, or a very good writer; nevertheless, it’s important for me to protect the original works on this blog with a statement of copyright appropriate for its use. I feel strongly that everyone who places original material in the public view should think carefully about this. As I’ve described above, such a copyright doesn’t necessarily prevent other folks from enjoying, sharing, or even modifying an original work. That’s what I like about Creative Commons; the options are flexible, and the creator – me, in this case – still retains the copyright.
For everything else that shows up on this blog – that is, material that I did not create – the intent is to present it as reference only, and with attribution where possible. In all these cases, I will do my best to limit myself to the bounds of fair use.
If the questions asked on online forums are any indication, there are many folks who don’t completely understand the nature of how copyright works. To be sure, the true nature of US Copyright Law is rather labyrinthine and obfuscated – but sometimes that’s the nature of law. The reality of it is really very simple: once an individual creates a work of art, that work is automatically copyrighted.
The creator instantly possesses an exclusive right to copy the work and, for example, benefit from its sale. Works protected in this way can be created by firing a shutter, writing a paragraph, placing a spot of paint on canvas…and these are only the “classic” ways to create a work. The list of ways in which a work may be originated is probably endless, for all practical purposes.
The challenge, of course, is to realize an efficient and realistic defense of said copyright once the work is created. That, to be sure, is solely the creator’s responsibility. In the USA, the Copyright Office can help with protecting copyrighted work, by allowing registration and aiding the process to challenge infringement. The Copyright Office describes the act of creation in the following way:
Copyright is secured automatically when the work is created, and a work is “created” when it is fixed in a copy or phonorecord for the first time.
If it seems simple, that’s because it is. It even holds for works that are never published.
