This page brought to you by creative commons

The Internet has become the foundation for strong virtual communities, many of these for the arts. These communities are sustained by frequent interaction and support from fellow members. 

What artists create is influenced by everything they perceive. Look up  ‘Darren Brown – Subliminal Advertising' on YouTube if you don't believe it.  Everything we see today is someone else's copyrighted material. A person can be influenced by something they see to create amazing things.  If it looks too much like the influence, they can also be sued for amazing amounts. For those that don't know, when something is created, it is instantly the property, or copyright, of the creator.

Many artists have made the choice to share work with peers and fans by choosing to copyright their work under a Creative Commons license.

According to creativecommons.org, The Creative Commons is "a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright."

The Creative Commons accomplishes this by offering several detailed licensing agreements to place one's work under.

Ranging from ‘Attribution', where the work can be reused and reinvented in any way as long as credit is given to the creator, to ‘No Derivative Works' where the material may be reproduced and distributed in anyway, but never changed.

In this way, as long as credit is given to the original artist, any work can be used to make new art.

If an artist both borrows from Creative Commons licensed work as well as licenses their own work in this way, they support the community.

With the range of media that can be shared today by simply uploading your entire camera SD card to Flikr or creating a free deviantArt account in minutes, we are exposed to more media. While these social networks make sharing easier, they improve the likelihood of theft as well.  This may be another reason for the popularity of the Creative Commons licenses; there is much less to be stolen when everything is free to use.

Creative Commons' accessibility doesn't end with visual arts. Artists such as musical artists Nine Inch Nails to self-published acoustic rock artist Josh Woodward license their work in this way.

President Obama even requires that content submitted to the White House Web site be licensed in this way to promote complete transparency and accessibility. 

Eric Falqeuro can be contacted at falquero@marshall.edu