Creative Commons Licensing Toolset For Digital Media

License and Link
To create a CC license for your work, use the Web-based tool at CreativeCommons.org. The tool walks you through selecting the terms of your license, then presents you with your customized license text in three different formats. You get a block of machine-readable RDF code (an XML-based language), a page with the license terms in simple, readable text, and a page of legalese that represents the real, binding license that would hold up in court. For Web-based content, just add the RDF to your page, hidden from view inside a comment block. This is for search engines and other content management systems to read and index. Then, add a clear and conspicuous link to the human-readable license terms to mark your work as copyrighted under a CC license. The CC tool actually provides you with the HTML code to do both of these things at once. Just copy-and-paste into your Web page and you're done.

To tag audio or video files, you'll take advantage of the fact that many digital media formats have the ability to carry textual information alongside their audio and video payload. Windows Media, Quicktime, and RealAudio/RealVideo have a "Clip Info" field for Copyright. MP3 carries metadata in the ID3 block, which is becoming increasingly used for everything from title and artist information to song lyrics.

Here's an example of the text inserted into the Copyright field of the example RealVideo file that goes with this article:

"© 2003 Luminus Productions. Licensed to the public under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/ verify at http://www.emediacommunications.biz/licenseinfo/luminus.html" The verification page contains the license text, along with links back to the content itself and whatever other descriptive information we want people to know about the work.

We're accomplishing several things here. First, we're associating the media file with the chosen license. We're also creating a verification link that ties the work back to our own Web site. By having the license field link back to a "license info" page, there is a visible, maintainable, and verifiable way to track the license terms and ownership of media files. Finally, having reciprocal links between the media file and our Web site drives Web site traffic and connects potential partners, customers, and collaborators back to us. As a bonus, the verification page can be indexed by the search engines, creating new ways for users to find the work.