I told a friend of mine the other day I decided to license the photos and other content on my web site under the Creative Commons License.

Being an artist and therefore, rightly, concerned about theft of her own work, she stared at me in disbelief.

Many people conclude such a move to be synonymous with just “giving it all away”, and in a sense it is, but there’s more to it than that. First, I’ve chosen a version of the license that provides for attribution. In short, you’re free to share and remix the work, pretty much to your heart’s content, so long as you attribute it back to its author (me). Seems only fair, and not so much to ask really. There’s even a handy snippet of HTML on the license page containing a link back to my site, which you can use for citing the work. Second, and here’s the really interesting part, the license provides that you agree to license your reuse under similar terms. Like dropping a pebble into an infinite lake, the waves keep spreading forever. Finally, let’s say you decide that great photo you took of Yosemite is suitable for commercial licensing, but you’ve already licensed it under Creative Commons. No problem. You can’t revoke the previous, more permissive, license someone may already have for the photo, but you can change the licensing of the photo for uses in the future.

But what if someone else profits from their reuse you say? Great! What if they profit and I don’t? Again, great. Nothing here to preclude that. In fact, if someone else profits from my work, the more it contributes to the sharing of ideas and general discussion. The value of the work increases. What it really boils down to is this: if you want to minimize the influence of your work, keep it private, hoard it, limit its use, place onerous conditions on its use; if you want to maximize its influence, do everything in your power to get it to as many people as you can, as often as you can.

How are you licensing your work? Other feedback? Join the discussion!