We can’t keep up. We can’t know about everything. Just because something’s famous, even in the relatively small world of education and technology, that doesn’t mean I have ever heard of it.

Sure, I know about Creative Commons. If you license your work with a CC license, you allow others to use it, with some limitations. You can require attribution. You can specify that derivatives can’t be made from it. You can restrict people to non-commercial use. You can allow people to change it, but only if they redistribute it with the same license.

There’s lots of flexibility with Creative Commons, and it fits well with the collaborative attitude of the education world. We work together. We share resources. If you want to print out one of my blog posts and pass it out to your staff, be my guest. If you want to use my something I’ve written for a class or workshop you’re teaching on blogging, go for it. If you can find some value in my work, I think that’s wonderful. It would be nice if you give me credit, though. And if you’re going to be profiting from it, you should contact me first. Oh, and if you make improvements to it, you should also let people share them in the same way. So I can use an “attribution, non-commercial, share-alike Creative Commons license” for my blog. And there it is, over in the sidebar. So copy away.

But that wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.

Last night, I heard about the famous Mayer and Bettle animation that explains Creative Commons.

This animation was created by Pete Foley, with music by Chris Perren. It was coordinated by Elliott Bledsoe, from Creative Commons Australia. And apparently, everyone on the Internet has seen it. Except me. And maybe you.

Oh, and the reason I heard about it last night is because there’s a new sequel to the first animation that goes into a little more depth and focuses on how to make money by giving away your work for free. IMHO, it’s not as good as the original, but it still may be worth a look.