(Shh! – Internal Dogfood) – YouTube introduces Creative Commons Attribution license

Users all over the world have noticed a very strange message appearing on YouTube today. Clicking the “Show More” button on videos presents users with the message “License: (Shh! – Internal Dogfood). Standard YouTube License.” But what does this strange, cryptic phrase mean?

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Turns out, YouTube has added the option for users to put their video under a Creative Commons license, allowing a given video to be reused, remixed, or rehashed by other users. According the YouTube, designating a video as Creative Commons Attribution license” will allow other users to ”copy, distribute and create derivative works from your video — but only if they give you credit. Your video will be available in the YouTube video editor.”

Videos marked with a Creative Commons license also changes the “dogfood” message to “Creative Commons – Attribution” (CC-BY – reuse allowed)” with a link to the Creative Commons website. Videos that contain music, images, or other material deemed by YouTube to be copyrighted cannot be marked as Creative Commons.

The Creative Commons option for videos containing copyrighted music, images, etc. is automatically disabled

One has to wonder how exactly adding an option for Creative Commons license on YouTube videos will work and- more importantly – how it will be abused. Will musical artists embrace CC and upload their own works to YouTube under CC licenses, for use in other videos? Will users be able to remix and edit popular viral videos and include pieces of them in their own? Time will tell.

Oh, and why the mysterious “dogfood” message? According to a YouTube employee, Google uses the term “dogfood” to refer to products tested by the company themselves. The message – which is currently quickly vanishing from the site – appears to have been an accident, a vestige from a not-so-careful coder.

For more information, check out YouTube’s Creative Commons page.

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Tagged as: Creative Commons, YouTube