What is this?
This is Yahoo! Search for Creative Commons content. It will help you find content on the Web – text, books, educational material, etc. – that is free to share or build upon.
Why is this important?
Copyright applies fully and automatically to any work – a photograph, a song, a web page, an article, pretty much any form of expression – the moment it is created. This means that if you want to copy and re-use a creative work you find online, you usually have to ask the author’s permission.
This “all rights reserved” protection is good thing for many authors and artists. But what about those who want you to use their work freely without permission — but on certain conditions?
This search engine helps you quickly find those authors and the work they have marked as free to use with only “some rights reserved.” If you respect the rights they have reserved (which will be clearly marked, as you’ll see) then you can use the work without having to contact them and ask. In some cases, you may even find work in the public domain — that is, free for any use with “no rights reserved.”