I’m not sure embracing CC opens a company to potential abuse. Copyright violations have always occurred. People have simply photocopied and cut-and-pasted for decades. All the CC license does (with application of appropriate clauses) is make it clear how you want it used, reused, and remixed (or not). Scumbags will always go around licenses anyway, and a company would have legal grounds to go after a CC license violator just as effectively as if they’d used a commercial license.

Frankly, I don’t create media to get rich, famous, or to be a quote unquote artist (nothing even close has happened). I don’t really place any monetary value on what I create (keeps me humble), so I have nothing to lose. And yes, there is nothing to stop “abuse” since on the re-use end, it is again on the individual to abide by the allowances in a CC license.

But it seems another instance where it is much easier to focus on the intances where people may use a service in a negative or abusinve manner, leading us to want to have more restrictions, and forgetting that there is a far, far, far, far greater number of instances ( am guessing, hoping), that do not make news, where people are using it for good.

But like I said, y’all are on the creator’s side of the coin. My wonder, and Scott’s too, I think, is why there is not much more awareness of the potential of things one can do on the re-use end, by seeking, finding CC licensed materials. It has been out for several years, and while people like D’Arcy are rather clear in demonstrating it, perhaps our field has not done nearly enough advocation. I am stumped, as I have never failed to find a compelling CC licensed graphic in flcikr to demo an idea, metaphor, concept. Never.