Why you shouldn't use a Creative Commons License if you care about views or money
74You may have seen people reference a Creative Commons license at their blogs or websites. Someone you trust may have told you that using that license could help protect your work from being copied by other people.
I would tell you just the opposite. If you intend to make money from your writing, whether here at Hubpages or anywhere else, referencing a Creative Commons license is a bad idea. Not only won't it protect you from copying, it may actually cause MORE copying!
Your work is already copyrighted. Whether you add a copyright notice or not, anything you put in a Hub here is immediately and automatically copyrighted. You don't need to do anything. You don't need to say that you want to enforce your rights, you don't need to use the word "Copyright" or the copyright symbol. It's automatic.
So, if your rationale for invoking a Creative Commons license was because you thought you needed something special like that, get that out of your head now. You don't need it.
If you want to, go ahead and add your own notice. Here, I'll do it now:
Copyright November 2011 by Anthony Lawrence, All rights reserved.
Does that add any protection I didn't already have? No, it does not.
Why Creative Commons can hurt you
I hope you now understand that you don't need a Creative Commons license. Let's talk about why you don't want it.
Many people will assume that the presence of a Creative Commons license always means free to copy and use for any purpose. They assume that because quite a few folks do use it for that: they throw their work open to the world to use around anywhere and everywhere without restriction.
That's very common with documentation for Open Source programs, for example. The original author wants to help people understand the program they wrote and gave away freely, so they want the documentation - the instructions on how to use it - spread far and wide.
In fact, a Creative Commons license can be more restrictive than that. It can prohibit "commercial use". You might think that specifying that will protect you.
It won't.
Commercial Use
Do you know what "commercial use means? No? Well, nobody really does. Creative Commons tries to explain it at Defining Noncommercial.
Got that? Assuming anyone actually bothered to read it, will they think that their use of your work is commercial?
Keep in mind that if the click on a Creative Commons licence, even one that does not allow commercial use, the very first thing they see is this:
You see what it tells them? "Free to share". Isn't that quite the invitation?
Yes, it goes on to specify conditions, but that first sentence may be all they read. Even if they do read the rest, they may assume that using it on their Adsense enabled blog is fine.
I used to use that "non-commercial" license. I had people insist that their use was not commercial even when they were plainly selling consulting services on the same page where they put my article!
If you use this license, you are opening yourself up to that. Sure, they will probably take it down if you demand it, but why encourage it in the first place?
Dilution
And, in fact, if they aren't using it commercially, they are free to copy it. That means that, even if people really do read and understand what uses you want to restrict, there are uses that do not conflict and therefore your work can be copied.
That copying dilutes your value. It may dilute it with Google and Bing and it may cause Huppages to give you a lower score. It will cost you views and that costs you money.
Don't use Creative Commons. It's a bad idea if you care about traffic to your page.
If you don't care about traffic or money, then using it is fine - that's what it is intended for. It sets the conditions where your work can be used. Don't use it if your intent is to protect.
Clarification
This came up in the comments, so be sure you understand. This article is NOT about using someone else's work (like a photo) that has a Creative Commons license.
This is about using a Creative Commons license on YOUR work.
For example, if you used a photo which carries a Creative Commons license, you have to abide by that license. If it said "only non-commercial", you probably should NOT use it here without asking the owner. The owner may say they don't mind, but some people do not want their photos used anywhere that you might make money. You have to ASK unless they specifically say you can use it anywhere.
If it only requires attribution, then that's all you have to do. READ THE LICENSE.
CommentsLoading...
Be careful about offering this kind of advice to people unless you're a lawyer.
Roger, do we need lawyers to hold our trousers while we [...phrase omitted...]? If we can't expect to be able to read the content of these licenses - assuming we actually do read them - and come to legally correct conclusions about what they mean, then how can we be held legally responsible for violating them?
Roger, that's utterly ridiculous. There's nothing here that requires a lawyer.
The world would be better off without lawyers, IMO! They are the ones responsible for making everything we do overly-complicated and hard to understand. You know why sharks don't attack lawyers? Professional courtesy.
But, wow...this is interesting information. I'm actually shocked. Fortunately, I have very few, (possibly only one) CC photo in use, but my goodness, I would have thought that the CC license applied ONLY to the photo--and NOT to the article in which it is included. Sheesh!
Either I am correct in my thinking, and people at large are just that stupid, or I misunderstood the licencing terms..
Voted up, useful and interesting
I'm not sure of what you mean. If you used a CC photo, you have to abide by its license. For example, if it said "non-commercial", you probably should NOT use it here without asking the owner.
If it only requires attribution, then that's all you have to do.
This article is NOT about USING someone else's work, it's about using a CC license on YOUR work.
Interesting. I just automatically copyright all my stuff. Piece of mind.
Your stuff IS automatically copyrighted, whether you do anything or not.
Whoops...I totally mis-understood. I thought you were referring to USING CC stuff you found elsewhere as part of your hub....My bad... pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain....
Good points. I agree that people seem to assume CC means free to use. Glad you clarified that some CC photos are not available for commercial use -- a hub with ads on it would count as commercial use.
I've been surprised when I see writers putting CC on their blogs and articles. It increases the risk of a duplicate content issue -- an effective way to lose page rank and traffic. Glad you're informing people.
It is occasionally useful to repurpose one of your photos, a graphic you've made, or some other handy freebie in order to get people to build backlinks to your pages. Not everyone will read the full license, so just put a little note in italics such as "Creative Commons -- you may use with credit and a link back!" and there's some backlinks for you. Of course, you may want to specify "NonCommercial." And you have to be aware some people will take the item without following the license. But then, people steal images all the time anyway.
Basically, it's useful to do this when the potential benefit of backlinks is helpful, and you don't really have other, better ways to monetize that content (e.g. selling a photo on Zazzle.)
Another consideration: Have you ever used Creative Commons photos on your articles? Have you benefitted from Creative Commons? Then, surely, once in a while, one should offer instead of always taking. It could be anything. Most of us take photos, so put a few snapshots up on Flickr as CC and share the wealth, eh? Then, of course, make sure said photo is connected to some Hub or article you've written, and include a link in the photo's description leading to your Hub. You may get a little traffic.
One final observation: I've seen a few Hubbers claim that a backlink for a Creative Commons license doesn't have to point back to the page the photo came from; they claim you can change the link to point to the photographer's profile instead. As someone who has offered many photos with a CC license, this disturbs me. That backlink is what you "pay" in return for use of the photo. If you don't put a backlink to the page the photo came from, then you're depriving the photo's page of that ever-so-vital backlink, which helps it rank well in SERPs. Why be so miserly?
@Hikehuy: A hub COULD be construed as commercial use. The owner may be fine with that, so no harm in asking.
@greekgeek: Those Hubbers are wrong. You HAVE to do what the license says, period.
I don't use a creative common licence. And where possible I use DRM.
drbj Level 8 Commenter 5 months ago
This information about misinformation is invaluable, Anthony. Thank you for the newsflash.