Starting today, readers of The Paly Voice may notice a new graphic — a Creative Commons licensing logo — tagged at the bottom of some stories.
The addition is due to a new collaboration with Creative Commons, a nonprofit corporation that allows published work to be available to the public for fair and legal sharing.
As a part of the Student Journalism 2.0 Project, The Paly Voice, along with the staff of El Estoque, the student news publication of Monta Vista High School, and the staff of The Broadview at Convent of the Sacred Heart High School, is the first high school in the nation to use Creative Commons licensing, which could potentially revolutionize the way creative works are available online.
According to the Creative Commons Web site, the goal of the organization is to “mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.” The licenses are free to use and allow the user to specifically license each piece of work they publish.
Several Voice staffers made the collaboration with Creative Commons possible. Sophomore Matthew Slipper did the initial coding; senior Evan Hahn, editor-in-Chief and Webmaster, implemented the code; and sophomore Spencer Schoeben, assistant-webmaster, has worked to install an upgraded version for a coming Drupal upgrade to the site.
In the coming weeks The Campanile, The Viking, Verde, and eventually InFocus, will each upload their material to the Voice, and staff members at each publication will have the choice of whether to tag their stories with one of six Creative Commons licensing options or stick with standard copyright.
Alex Kozak, the program assistant for ccLearn, the educational division of Creative Commons, hopes that the program can change the way students view the licensing and publishing of their work.
“We’re hoping that it totally changes the way that students learning journalism think about the process of doing journalism,” Kozak said. “We’re hoping that thinking about copyright and thinking about licensing becomes integral with the process of publishing a story so that students are thinking about how their work is shared and how it interacts with people on the Internet.”
Campanile adviser Esther Wojcicki, who is the chair of the board of directors for Creative Commons, believes that the collaboration will positively influence student journalism at Paly.
“It gives people the legal right to share their story,” Wojcicki said. “It’s like your own PR firm.”
Junior Marc Havlik, a photographer for Voice and The Campanile, echoed the sentiment of Kozak and Wojcicki.
“Our school has been given a great opportunity to start a revolution in being able to license our work,” Havlik said.