Thing 17 - Creative Commons

I must admit that I find anything to do with copyright law a bit of a minefield, especially when it comes to using images found online. With sites like Pinterest and Tumblr encouraging you to 'repin' and 'reblog' it is easy to forget how the image got onto the Internet in the first place, and whether it was properly credited when it was originally uploaded. I often add images to these sites and am left wondering whether it is entirely ethical, or if I am infringing on someone's rights. I feel that I am covering my tracks if I credit the author of the work, provide a link back and add a copyright symbol, but I'm also aware that this may not be enough. For example, for the Flickr exercise I uploaded a couple of pictures of posters I had taken at WSA at the second year Graphic Arts show. Although I mentioned in the description that the photos were from here, and made no attempt to pass these off as my own work, I do not know who created them so I wonder if they should even be on Flickr?  This 'thing' has therefore been something I have paid quite a lot of attention to, and is certainly very pertinent at a time when we are being encouraged to upload images to our blogs. 

Creative Commons is something I have been aware of, but until now, didn't fully understand. After having looked at the site and watched the helpful You Tube video, I set about completing our task 'to find an interesting image and blog about it.' I decided to go a step further and find an image I could modify and use to create my own work. I therefore searched for a particularly uninspiring image, selecting the box 'modify, adapt, or build upon' on the Creative Commons search page, then opened it up in Photoshop. So this jumper that I found on Wikimedia Commons:

By Joan Rocaguinard (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

Has become this:

This is Bengt. From The Killing. He is NOT real.

To upload the original image I first attempted to copy the HTML code directly from Wikimedia Commons,  however something went terribly wrong in Blogger and I had to give up so instead I have just copied the attribution (which looks very messy). What I am a bit confused about is that although I have modified the original work quite extensivly, it seems that I still have to apply the original attribution, meaning I have no rights over the above work (can someone please correct me if I am wrong or perhaps suggest a better way to supply the attributions?!). 

I also had a look at Creative Commons licenses in relation to Flickr, and discovered that it is very easy to apply Creative Commons licenses from 'Owner Settings' in the sidebar, and also that there are surprisingly, many many images that can be used quite freely, including this rather beautiful Norwegian Fjord below:

Norwegian lake by Kosepote on Flickr.

Again, by copying and pasting the code directly into the HTML, I have the correct attribution and I can feel confident that I have referenced the image properly and have stuck to the terms of the license. Phew!

In conclusion, although I think getting your head around copyright and Creative Commons can be a bit confusing, and with so many different licenses available it is important to pay attention to what you can and can't do, anything that encourages the sharing and use of creative works is worth getting to grips with. I still want to delve a bit deeper into Creative Commons, especially as I intend to continue to blog after 23 Things and want to be able to use images without fretting too much about breaking the law!