Wattpad is Officially Down With Creative Commons Now

For many writers, obscurity is a greater threat than piracy which is probably why Wattpad is officially down with Creative Commons 4.0.  Wattpad just announced that its community of 30 million writers and readers are now under licensing their work on Creative Commons.  This will allow "fans to remix work, write fanfiction, translate Wattpad stories into other languages, and make anything from story trailers to story covers for their favorite writers." 

From the press release: (72 KB PDF)

“The biggest question facing new writers today isn’t how to protect their work; it’s how to find a readership for it, said Cory Doctorow, science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger. “It makes complete sense that so many Wattpad writers are gravitating toward Creative Commons licenses: by giving others permission to share your writing, you can open doors to new audiences and new creative opportunities.” Cory Doctorow has shared five stories on Wattpad under CC licenses, including New York Times best-selling novels Homeland and Little Brother. Today, to coincide with the roll out of CC 4.0, he will share his first novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom on Wattpad. 

“All knowledge and culture owes something to what came before it – it’s this public commons of ideas that forms the foundation of our society,” said Creative Commons CEO Ryan Merkley. “I’m excited that the Wattpad community will have Creative Commons’ simple, free tools to share their work, to re-use the works of others, and to contribute to the global creative community.”

While it's true that most writers are more concerned with growing their audience, that doesn't mean you should disregard protecting your work.  Creative Commons uses the law of copyrights to do what it does.  You, as a writer, are still the copyright holder except that through Creative Commons, you are offering the public different degrees of licenses to allow others to reuse your work.  Depending on your ultimate goals with your work, the Creative Commons has a variety of licenses that you should look into so that while you grow your audience you are also considering the future of your work.

The Licenses

Attribution
CC BYThis license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.
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Attribution-ShareAlike
CC BY-SAThis license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. This license is often compared to “copyleft” free and open source software licenses. All new works based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia, and is recommended for materials that would benefit from incorporating content from Wikipedia and similarly licensed projects.
View License Deed | View Legal Code 

Attribution-NoDerivs
CC BY-NDThis license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
View License Deed | View Legal Code 

Attribution-NonCommercial
CC BY-NCThis license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.
View License Deed | View Legal Code 

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
CC BY-NC-SAThis license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
View License Deed | View Legal Code 

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
CC BY-NC-NDThis license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.
View License Deed | View Legal Code 

Creative Commons also provides tools that work in the “all rights granted” space of the public domain. Our CC0 tool allows licensors to waive all rights and place a work in the public domain, and our Public Domain Mark allows any web user to “mark” a work as being in the public domain.

If you want more hands-on help, use the Creative Commons License Chooser.