Introduction to Copyright and Licensing Traditionally, many
articles, publications, and multimedia are copyrighted. This
means that the creator of the original work is granted an
exclusive set of rights to copy, distribute and adapt the work.
It is illegal for other people to copy, distribute, or alter the
work unless given explicit permission from the creator. However,
with an increasing population being connected to the Internet,
such copyright laws are burdensome especially when sharing text,
images, and other media. A number of different licenses in
addition to the traditional copyright have emerged and are an
increasingly popular alternative to a traditional copyright
license. Some commonly used licenses include the Creative
Commons licenses and GNU (GFDL/GPL licenses). In addition to
licenses, the creator may also declare their work as fair use or
public domain. Creative Commons is a non-profit organization
known for its creation of the Creative Commons (CC) License. The
Creative Commons License are a s