This document provides an overview of copyright and open licensing, specifically Creative Commons licenses. It defines what copyright is and explains that Creative Commons licenses provide alternatives to traditional "all rights reserved" copyright. The document outlines the different Creative Commons licenses and their conditions, such as attribution, non-commercial use, derivatives, and share alike. It emphasizes the importance of checking copyright for any third-party content before openly licensing a work.

1. • 16 October 2014
1 https://www.flickr.com/photos/toprankblog/10987479805/in/photostrea
m/

2. Copyright
• A collection of exclusive rights, given to
creators and authors to protect their original
works
– copyright holder has the exclusive right to control
the publication, distribution and adaptation of their
works for a certain period of time, after which time
the work enters the public domain.
– Regarded as providing an incentive for creativity to
authors and creators as well as a means of financial
compensation for their intellectual property.

3. Meaning of Terms
• Author/Creator: is the originator of any written
work
• Copyright: exclusive right given by law to the
author/creator of a work
• What can be copyrighted? – Any work which is not
an exact copy of someone else’s work
• Can ideas be copyrighted? No… only expression of
ideas are copyrighted...
• Can copyright be transferred? Yes, an author can
assign copyright to another person, as in the case
of property

4. Copyright
Exclusive rights given by law to
the original creator/author
• To get credit
• To copy
• To distribute
• To license
• To sell/make economic
transaction
• To perform
4

5. Further Copyright…
• Prohibits unauthorized use,
distribution, performance,
adaptation, sell, etc.
• Requires permission of the
Copyright holder for creating any
derivative works
• Fair use or fair dealing is though
permitted
• Fair use covers Examples of fair use
include commentary, search
engines, criticism, news reporting,
research, teaching, library archiving
and scholarship. 5

6. All rights reserved
• May not reproduce
• Fair use / Fair dealing for
classroom use
• Permission / royalty payments
for reproduction
• May not use on the Internet

7. Knowledge Commons
• Who owns knowledge?
• Researchers stand on the shoulder of giants
• Previous research is necessary for new research
• Knowledge is Free – Information is not.
• Data Information Knowledge

8. What is “Open”?
• It’s about open license used to share educational
and research material
– Reuse
– Revise
– Remix
– Redistribute
– Retain
• No permission required as long as the open
license is respected

9. Defining the "Open" in Open Content
• Retain - the right to make, own, and control copies of the content
(e.g., download, duplicate, store, and manage)
• Reuse - the right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g.,
in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
• Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content
itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
• Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with
other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate
the content into a mashup)
• Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content,
your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of
the content to a friend)
9 http://www.opencontent.org/definitio
n/

10. Why Creative Commons?
• Legal Code: expansive legal
languages tested in several
cases
• Commons Code: Simple icon-based
approach to explain what
you can do want you can’t
• Digital Code: Enables search
engines to search and locate
through CC Rights Expression
Language
10

11. Why consider licensing?
• Copyright and licensing issues permeate
discussion and debate on creation and reuse
of OER
• are at the heart of OER as they have important
implications for creators, users and
institutions.
• By default, copyright is automatic and ‘all
rights reserved’ - thus permission is required
by those who wish to use the work.

12. Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/license
• Most developed alternative Licensing
approach : Larry Lassig
• User friendly licenses for digital materials

13. Open Licenses
Creative Commons
• CC-BY
• CC-BY-SA
• CC-BY-NC
• CC-BY-NC-SA
• CC-BY-ND
• CC-BY-NC-ND
Concepts
• Attribution
• Share Alike
• Non-Commercial
• Non-Derivative

14. Creative Commons licences
• CC licences are not an alternative to copyright.
They enable creators to distribute their content
to a wide audience and specify the manner in
which the work can be used while still
maintaining their copyright.
• CC aims to make copyright content more
‘active’ by ensuring that content can be
redeveloped easily.

15. Creative Commons licences
• All CC licences have common features:
– Help creators/licensors retain copyright while allowing
others to copy, distribute, and make some uses of their
work — at least non-commercially.
– Ensure licensors get the credit for their work.
– Work around the world and last as long as applicable
copyright lasts (because they are built on copyright).
• These common features serve as the baseline, on
top of which licensors can choose to grant
additional permissions when deciding how they
want their work to be used.

16. Creative Commons conditions
Condition Explanation
Attribution
(BY)
All CC licences require that others who use your work in
any way must attribute it – i.e. must reference the work,
giving you credit for it – the way you request, but not in a
way that suggests you endorse them or their use of the
work.
Non-
Commercial
(NC)
You let others copy, distribute, display, perform and
(unless you have chosen No Derivatives) modify and use
your work for any purpose other than commercially.
No Derivative
works (ND)
You let others copy, distribute, display and perform only
original copies of your work.
Share Alike
(SA)
You let others copy, distribute, display, perform and
modify your work, as long as they distribute any modified
work on the same terms.

17. The six Creative Commons licences
• Attribution (CC-BY)
– This licence 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 licences
offered.
– It is recommended for maximum dissemination
and use of licensed materials.

18. Creative Commons licences ctd
• Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA)
– This licence 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.
– Often compared to “copyleft” free and open source
software licences.
– All new works based on yours will carry the same
licence, so any derivatives will also allow commercial
use. This is the licence used by Wikipedia.

19. Example: BY-SA
• Published by
WikiEducator
• BY-SA
– With Attribution
(BY)
– Share Alike (SA)

20. Creative Commons licences ctd
• Attribution-NoDerivs (CC BY-ND)
– This licence allows for redistribution, commercial
and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along
unchanged and in whole, with credit to you.
• Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)
– This licence 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.

21. Example: NC
• Published by the UKOU
• CC-NC - Non-Commercial (may cover all costs
but no profit)

22. Example: NC-ND
• Published by WIPO
• CC-NC-ND
– Free of charge
– Non-Commercial (may
cover all costs but no
profit)
– No Derivatives (No
editing)

23. Creative Commons licences ctd
• Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
(CC BY-NC-SA)
– This licence 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.

24. Creative Commons licences ctd
• Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
(CC BY-NC-ND)
– This licence is the most restrictive, 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.

25. Creative Commons Public Domain
Tools • CC’s public domain tools enable authors and
copyright owners who want to dedicate their
works to the worldwide public domain to do
so.
– The CC0 tool (“No Rights Reserved”) allows
licensors to waive all rights and place a work in the
public domain.
– The Public Domain mark identifies a work that is
free of known copyright restrictions. It is not
recommend for works that are restricted by
copyright laws in one or more jurisdictions.

26. Ported and Unported licences
• When looking at a particular CC-licensed
document or work, you may find that it refers to
ported or unported licences. This refers to the
underlying legal code.
– ‘Port’ applies to the adaptation of data to suit a
particular technological or policy
jurisdiction/territory/environment.
– Unported licences are not associated with any specific
jurisdiction. They are written according to international
copyright treaties and are, therefore, in theory,
compatible under all copyright legislation in various
countries.

27. Issues to note
• There is no registration required to license your work. All you
need to do is select a Creative Commons licence and then
display the licence information on your work.
• It may be worthwhile to clearly spell out rights in terms of
the materials that third parties produce, including the
possibility of subsequent use and reuse by third parties.
Policies may stipulate the avoidance of third party,
copyrighted material embedded in the material that would
otherwise limit its ability to be shared.
• If your work contains third-party (i.e. not created by you)
content (e.g. images, text, charts) and you wish to distribute
your work widely as an OER – whether in person, or
electronically or online – then you must undergo copyright
clearance to obtain permission for third-party content.

28. Example of information to be included
when licensing works
• The Creative Commons license with hyperlink to the
licence
• The name of the Copyright Holder and Year of Publication
• The name of author(s) (N.B., this may be different from
the copyright holder)
• Branding of the institution/s, associates, funders etc.
• Acknowledgements of those who contributed (media
specialists, voiceovers, collaborators, etc.)
• List of all third party copyright clearance obtained (title of
resource with copyright holder)
• How the OER is to be cited.
• General contact person – an email address for managing
inquires about the OER.

29. Example: Obtaining a licence for
proprietary and commercial works
• Saide Teacher Education Series, published from 1998 to 2002 with Oxford University
Press.
• Saide owned the copyright for the learning guides, readers and video/audio
resources. These resources are now out of print and the publishing rights for most
of the modules in the series have reverted to Saide, who wished to make the
materials digitally available on the OER Africa website under a CC licence.
• Permission needed to be sought with regard to the third-party readings. Letters
were sent to the copyright holders (the publishers).
• Permission was granted for many of the readings, but not all, and some copyright
holders either refused permission or granted permission under certain restrictions.
• Saide reviewed the status for each module, and found that permission was granted
for a sufficient number of key readings for it to be useful for those readings to be
made available on the website. A full reference list for all of the readings was
provided so that users could source the readings (where permission was not
granted) independently or apply for copyright permission themselves should they
need to – Saide offered to supply print copies to those users wishing to do so.

30. Summary - Open licences

31. Take care to check . . .
• Copyright of
– pictures
– graphics
– texts
Understand the rights of copyright holders

32. References
• OER Africa Copyright toolkit:
http://www.oerafrica.org/copyright
• Creative Commons Website:
http://creativecommons.org
• Contains a number of useful tools such as the CC
licence compatibility wizard which can assist in
providing guidance for the most suitable licence
to be used, because not all of the licences are
compatible with one another.

33. references
• www.ocw.mit.edu
• www.oecd.org/edu/ceri
• http://www.contactnorth.ca/trends-directions/
open-educational-resources
• http://www.tall.ox.ac.uk
• www.sonet.nottingham.ac.uk
• http://www.oerafrica.org
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educationa
l_resources
• www.oerasia.org