This went out via email to a few people, but I'm posting it here too. This is
some suggested text for search.creativecommons.org:
search.creativecommons.org is not a search engine, but rather offers convenient
access to search services provided by other independent organizations. CC has
no control over the results that are returned. Certain sites, such as Flickr,
should reliably return only CC-licensed results. This is because the licensing
of every item at Flickr is stored in a database and can be reliably determined.
However, for others, Google, for example, non-CC-licensed works may be
returned. Presently, searching the web at large for CC-licensed works is not a
perfect science. Just as regular web searches are not guaranteed to
return the things you want or expect, neither will a search for CC-licensed
works always return CC licensed material. Do not assume that everything
returned by this search portal is under a CC license. You should always follow
the link(s) to the works you are interested in and verify that they do indeed
appear to be marked as being under a CC license. Since there is no registration
to use a CC license, and no such registry exists, CC has no way to determine
what is and isn't under a CC license. If you are in doubt you should contact
the copyright holder directly, or try to contact the site where you found the
content.
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