 I would like to consult with someone about protecting a piece of intellectual property. We'll be happy to help. What type of intellectual property are you interested in protecting? Well I took this really great picture while I was on vacation last week. I want to post it online and let other people use it too, but I want to have a say in how they use it. My friend once took this picture of her dog wearing a hat. It was a funny picture so she posted it on Flickr, but before she knew it someone had to use the picture and then there was this viral meme that went around without even giving her credit. I don't want that to happen to my picture. No problem. As you may be aware there are several levels of protection that you can apply to your picture. The first is copyright protection. Copyright is automatic so you already have the copyright to your work. No one else can use your copyrighted work without first seeking your permission. Well that seems kind of strict. I want other people to be able to use my picture without having to ask me first. Are there other types of protection that make that possible? Certainly. If you'd like others to be able to use your work you can place it in the public domain. This means that you remove all protection so that others don't need to ask your permission or give you credit when they use it. That seems like it's not strict enough. I want others to be able to use my work without having to ask my permission, but I would want them to give me credit for it. I see. Then what you might be interested in is what's called a creative commons license. Users can apply Creative Commons licenses to their copyrighted works as a way of indicating to others what uses of their work are okay. Some Creative Commons licenses only require that you provide attribution to the original creator of the work, while others let users know if it's okay to make changes to the original work or not. Oh that sounds like what I need, but how do I know which Creative Commons license to choose? There is information right on the Creative Commons website that will help you decide. Great! Thanks so much for your help. Well, this isn't really how it works, but wouldn't it be nice if it did? Most of the time making intellectual property decisions involves using your own best judgment, being aware of what your choices are, and knowing how to best communicate those choices to others who might want to use your work. Professionals typically don't get involved until a lawsuit is filed for copyright infringement, in other words, once it's too late. That's why it's important to educate yourself so you can make smart decisions about the intellectual property that you create, as well as the intellectual property you use. We'll learn more about using intellectual property of others in part two.