Today the Office Team have released a new copyright licensing add-on tool for Office which helps businesses and individuals to protect their IP in documents. This tool will make it easier for authors using Office to select a Creative Commons license for their creative works.

We have partnered with Creative Commons who are a non-profit org promoting flexible copyright licenses for creative works. CC have built upon the “all rights reserved” concept of traditional copyright to offer a voluntary “some rights reserved” approach. The tool lets you choose if you intend to declare the IP “all rights reserved”, “some rights reserved” or “public domain” and inserts the appropriate legalese for you into the document.

The add-in inserts an option called Creative Commons in the File menu of Office apps. Click that option, and the tool asks simple questions in 2 screens, then affixes a link to appropriate license for your creative work. The link leads to a human readable summary (the Commons Deed), which links to the legal code a full copyright license.

Add-ins like this help to demonstrate that current copyright law is flexible and can be applied by creators to reflect their choices.

Apparently it dosent work on Office 2007 though!

Via: Office Rocker