Copyright Clearance Center has just launched Ozmo, a new web-based service focused on helping photographers, bloggers, and other content creators license their work for commercial use. Ozmo supports Creative Commons’ CC+ protocol (see the press release about CC+ for more information), meaning that it enables creators to license their work to the public under one set of terms via a Creative Commons license, and offer the ability to obtain a private license via Ozmo’s licensing system — to purchase rights not offered by the CC license a work is under (e.g., commercial use if the work is under a CC NonCommercial license, the right to make an adaptation and not share under the same license if the work is under a CC ShareAlike license, or the right to use without attribution), or simply to obtain a private agreement with the copyright holder for situations that require such.

To use Ozmo, a creator sets up an account, selects license terms, and sets a price for the use of their work. Ozmo then works as a broker to companies, publishers, and bloggers who are looking to use work commercially. Ozmo manages the licensing process and pays creators when a license to their content is purchased. You can find more details about how Ozmo works on the site’s About page.

Artist, animator, and filmmaker Ryan Junell (who is the designer behind the Creative Commons logo, as well as several of CC’s explanatory videos – see “Get Creative,” “Wanna Work Together?” and “Reticulum Rex”) worked with musician J Lesser to create a short video that explains how Ozmo works. It’s licensed under CC BY-NC-ND.