One of the things I really enjoyed about the RCAC event this week was meeting people for the first time that I have only known though online interactions. It was truly a pleasure to meet @thecleversheep, @peterskillen and @aforgrave.

The format of the RCAC day is keynote, break out sessions, lunch, keynote and another round of break out sessions. This formula works well, and there is always a good selection of presenters and topics for the break out sessions. This year, I had registered for a presentation about the Creative Commons. What a pleasant surprise to discover that the session was being presented by @thecleversheep, who I had been following for some time on Twitter.  How wonderful to meet a kindred spirit who shares the same passion about copyright, licensing, managing content in appropriate ways in the web 2.0 world and spreading the word about digital citizenship!

I really liked the framework used to discuss content from a cradle to grave perspective: creation, ownership and rights of use through to public domain. You own the rights to content you create (original or using legal sources), all rights reserved and 50 years after your death, it becomes part of the public domain. The ‘gap’, defines the timeframe between creation and public domain. The Creative Commons provides a great way for you to formally indicate a specific type of copyright licensing and use of your work(s) while you are alive. Licensing typically fall into the  areas of:

• attribution
• share alike
• non commercial
• non derivative
• and combination of these principles

Detailed license descriptions are available at the Creative Commons website. Excellent examples were given to illustrate music, videos, written content and remix/mashups. I had to smile when audience questions were taken at the end of the session and the answers to some scenarios were ‘that’s illegal’ and ‘that breaks copyright’. Just because something is easy to do with technology does not mean it is legal to to it.  The Clever Sheep knows his stuff !

I would encourage you to visit the Clever Sheep website and view the Creative Commons for RCAC article. Thanks for a great session, being a creative teacher and promoting digital citizenship.

Thank you to @dougpete and his organizing team for a great learning opportunity.

~ Mark