You can now opt in to a Creative Commons license for videos you upload to hosting service Vimeo, giving you more precise control over where and how others can use your work.
Vimeo announced its support for Creative Commons in ablog post today, saying that it’s doing this to make it easier for people to borrow, build upon and redistribute Vimeo videos without contacting their creators.
Each time you upload a video, you’re given a choice between the six major Creative Commons licenses: Attribution, Attribution Share Alike, Attribution No Derivatives, Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike, Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives. Descriptions of each are provided in Vimeo’s FAQ and at the Creative Commons website. You can also choose one when modifying an existing video.
Vimeo rep Dalas Verdugo was careful to note that these licenses don’t have any impact on the old rules for embedding users’ videos, and Marketing Director Deborah Szajngarten told CNET that you’ll soon be able to search Vimeo by license just like you can at Creative Commons’s own site.
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco that aims to make it easier to share and adapt creative works on the Internet. Traditional copyright laws still work counter to the culture and customs of the web in some cases, so these custom licenses have become quite popular. Sites that use them includeWikipedia, Flickr and blip.tv. Google Co-founder Sergey Brin donated half a million dollars to the organization last year.
Vimeo is an underdog compared to YouTube in the online video game, but the site’s operators have nevertheless done a pretty good job of catching up with new trends and technologies, and have even led the pack in some cases. They’ve implemented user video analytics, 1080p HD uploads, HTML5 streaming for devices like the iPad and Facebook Connect.
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