License, Please?

Today marks the “1.0 release” of the Creative Commons Licensing Project. The licensing project aims to make it very easy for people to clearly state the terms under which their creative work can be used. Answer three simple questions on the web form and the system returns to you everything you need: a snip of HTML for your page as well as a standard block of legalese if you want to use the license on a non-web project.

One other cool thing: the HTML provided includes RDF markup which will allow search engines to index your work according to the license it uses. RDF has looked cool for a long time, but its potential will require more behind-the-scenes work like this which defines terms and their meanings. Here’s the RDF for the license I’ve chosen for Through The Wire.

<rdf:RDF xmlns=”http://web.resource.org/cc/”
xmlns:dc=”http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/”
xmlns:rdf=”http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#”>
<Work rdf:about=””>
<license rdf:resource=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0″ />
</Work>

<License rdf:about=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd-nc/1.0″>
<requires rdf:resource=”http://web.resource.org/cc/Attribution” />
<permits rdf:resource=”http://web.resource.org/cc/Reproduction” />
<permits rdf:resource=”http://web.resource.org/cc/Distribution” />
<prohibits rdf:resource=”http://web.resource.org/cc/CommercialUse” />
<requires rdf:resource=”http://web.resource.org/cc/Notice” />
</License>

</rdf:RDF>

RDF has a reputation for being confusing, but this is actually pretty readable — certainly that’s a credit to the people at the Creative Commons for their hard work.