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Google has just launched a "Usage Rights" category in their advanced search. It uses Creative Commons license to allow users to search for works which either "allow some form of re-use" or "can be freely modified, adapted or built upon". This is a great step forward and will hopefully increase the adoption of Creative Commons (CC).
On the other hand, I don't see CC mentioned on the page and having only two choices is limiting, considering the various other licenses that people are likely to use. Yahoo advanced search already has two radio buttons instead allowing you to choose "Find content I can use for commercial purposes" or "Find content I can modify, adapt, or build upon". This actually allows three choices (depending on how you count) and they have a CC logo and a link to an explanation.
I realize it takes a lot for Google to add this and I appreciate all of the work that went into getting this done. Yahoo and Google are both probably testing this feature to some extent. It would be great if you could all spread the word, try to service and give feedback to Yahoo and now Google so they continue to integrate Creative Commons into their offerings.
In addition to Google and Yahoo, there are many other services that have begun integrating Creative Commons. See the web page for more info.
I think this is great, but I'm not sure it's easily usable enough that a lot of people who need it can use it. It's unclear to me exactly what the status of these materials are... seems very impenetrable to someone who is only somewhat aware of what CC is.
My father could benefit from features like this in search engines... he runs an audiovisual lab for a highschool and is constantly searching for materials students can rework. It's very frustrating to him how restrictive he needs to be to follow the letter of the law as people come to him with "fair use" expectations and learn how things really are. These kids want to learn some skills but everything they want to tweak is copyrighted.
Yahoo actually has a search front end for CC: http://search.yahoo.com/cc
Personally, I don't see a reason why Google should include CC logos there. They are probably considering many more licenses than just CC (like e.g. FDL which is used by Wikipedia and other -pedia and wiki-'s).
What's more, there is no good reason to include all possible combinations of permissions granted by the multitude of free licenses out there. Google is following the "less is more" strategy and I would love to see CC take the same direction instead of spawning new licenses and projects which make it every time more and more difficult to understand what CC is all about (think of Dvorak here and his inability to understand the idea).
great news! too bad it's not visible in "other" languages, at least in Hungarian it doesn't show...
marek - i guess you're right with google's focus on simplicity, but i still think they should include a cc option explicitly. right now, there aren't that many licences to cause trouble. but even if there are or will be (hope not), it wouldn't have to be complicated and cluttered - they could easily "hide" it putting it in a separate spot with providing more options.
regarding cc licences - i agree, the fewer versions the (would be) better, but it's just not easy to find the right balance. think about authors' different needs...
this is one of the first times that google has gotten into metadata searching, which is interesting ...