Licensed to Share...Sometimes

I have heard lots about different licensing over the years, but have never really delved into them enough to know what allows what and by whom. It was interesting to learn a little more about things, as I had often thought that I would eventually need to look into this for licensing any future performances that I write and direct. I didn't know what would give me rights to protect my work, yet also allow others to spread (perform) my work without me constantly having to be consulted.. yet also still not have others making a profit off of my work either. I'll all for a sharing of knowledge and arts, but I don't want others profiting from my intellectual property. So, after doing some research and reading about different licensing, I've decided that I'd use a Creative Commons license, more specifically, an Attribution, Non-commercial, Non-derivatives license. The definition of that creativecommons.org defines this as "the most restrictive of our six main licenses, allowing redistribution. This license is often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially." I want people to share my work, but I don't want them to change it or profit from it, and I want credit for my own work. I think it's self-explanatory as to why I wouldn't want someone to profit from my work or take credit for my work, but I do want to explain why I wouldn't want someone to change my work. The thing about performance is that often the writer/director has a very specific message they are trying to portray and often that message can be received differently even by an audience seeing it just as the writer/director intended it, much less if it were tweaked. I don't necessarily want my name attached to a message that has resulted from a remixed version of my original work.
Now, with that being said, I wouldn't be against giving special permission for someone or a group to make alterations or take snippets from my work if I was able to see what they were doing and felt it wasn't a misrepresentation of my own work. So I guess I kind of live in a grey area between the cc-by-nc-nd (above description) and the cc-by-nc-sa (Attribution, Non-commercial, Share Alike). I think the "Share Alike" is important, as I would want whomever was tweaking the work to be required to carry a license that restricted non-commercial use.

I found a repository of public domain pictures where one can find tons and tons of pictures that can be used for anything.. ANYTHING. Personal use, educational use, commercial use-- WHATEVER! The only thing they warn is that if you use any of the free pictures, be aware that no model releases have been acquired. They also ask that if you use one of their images, you include a link back to the site BUT, from what I can tell, this isn't required, only asked. However, if you redistribute it ONLINE, you must hyperlink it back to the site.

So here is a picture of fireworks by Anna Cervova that I found and really liked.. and could use it without credit anywhere but when I'm redistributing it online :)

From

Ain't it purrty? :)

I will say that I found it challenging to find a photo with no restrictions on it. I tried all kinds of wording to find an image. Finally, when I typed "free royalty free pictures" and JACKPOT.

It's interesting to me that people are willing to literally give their images away without even requiring credit (except for online). You don't find many people who are willing to just give their work away. I guess it is for the sake of community. I appreciate that people are willing to give away their artwork, but I don't know that I would be willing to. And it's got to feel good to see a picture you took on something one day. Although (and maybe I'm just selfish) I think it'd feel better to know you got paid for it.. or at least CREDIT for it.. when you see it :)