Creative Commons 101

Tirana, May 14 2016

Gwen Franck (Creative Commons, EIFL)

 

 

"Creative Commons 101" by Gwen Franck is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, except otherwise noted.
"Caution Tape" by Eugene Zemlyanskiy on Flickr CC BY 

I am not a lawyer ... (not even a researcher )

"All rights reserved"

Existing copyright regulation is not  adapted to the reality in 2016

  • International collaboration
  • text & data mining
  • citizen science
  • various Open Access policies
  • Wikipedia ...
  • social media
  • education
  • translations
  • civil society
  • ...
"No access" by Lukas Benc on Flickr, CC BY-ND

In an ideal world ...

I'm pretty sure Newton didn't say:

"Some rights reserved"

If you make it clear from the start what can be done with your work ...

  • access
  • attribution
  • re-use
  • modification
  • commercial use
  • ...

... others can build upon your work without fear of violating your author rights.

Who are we?

  • global
  • non profit
  • 20+ staff
  • 85+ teams
  • 300+ volunteers

Almost 100 volunteer teams worldwide develop these licenses !

Picture by CCKorea, CC BY on Flickr

What do we do?

  • develop and curate 6 licenses + 2 public domain tools
  • inform about the licenses,  copyright reform, open education, open science, open policy, open business models, ...
  • advocate for a vibrant 'commons'
  • develop technical tools
  • ...

A Creative Commons license (or public domain tool)  is universally recognisable, juridically sound, easily applicable and leaves the user in no doubt about the intentions of the author.

Creative Commons licenses are free, easy-to-use copyright licenses providing a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — on conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.”

In a world with fair copyright laws, Creative Commons licenses would be superfluous

At this point, almost 1.1 billion items are licensed with a CC license! 

Using a Creative Commons license makes it easy for creators to determine what can be done with their work and provides clarity and legal certainty for users -

in one click

  • Creative Commons is a tool, not a silver bullet: It builds on existing copyright
  • Correct citation is essential 
  • Incorrect citation and use of CC licensed materials is not only bad science, it is a copyright infringement
  • If you license your own work with CC - you have a legal basis to demand that you are cited correctly 

 

CC Licenses

 

4 building blocks

Can be combined into 6 licenses

BY

  • You are free to:

    • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

    • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

    • for any purpose, even commercially

  • Under the following terms:

  • Same conditions as CC BY, plus:
    • ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

  •  Same conditions as CC BY, plus:

Two additional legal tools

License chooser

Image by Aston University - licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license

Make sure the license you use allows for the re-use you want!

Don't forget:

How does it work?

Three layers:

  • Machine Readable
  • Human Readable
  • Legal Code

Legal Code

  • juridical basis
  • "version 4.0"
  • created by CC Legal Team + input from communities worldwide
  • available in your language
  • universally applicable

Human Readable

  • summary or 'deed'
  • this is what you link to
  • available in your language

Machine Readable

  • make it easy for "the Web" to know when a work is available under a Creative Commons license

Adding a CC license to your work

Keep in mind when licensing your work:

Finding CC licensed content

Citing CC licensed content

a little common sense goes a long way!

  • attribution (BY) is obligatory: name of the author and name of the work (if available)
  • link to the original source
  • mention and link to the license/(c) status (You don't need to  credit public domain works) 
  • mention if you remix/adapt, link to the original version of the work
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
www.flickr.com/photos/clement127/

Title

Author

Source

License

  • Picture found on Flickr
  • 'I am so confused' (c) Creative Commons
  • 'I am so confused' by Ian Sane
  • CC BY 2.0 
  • 'I am so confused' (c) Flickr

 

Cute kittens in the Public Domain

Attribution = nice, but not obligatory

Cooper-Hewitt's Collection Database, licensed under CC0 on Github

"In order to reduce any uncertainty about the 'legitimate uses' of this dataset, Cooper-Hewitt has licensed this release under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license. This license is the most permissive available and allows for all types of reuse"

You can use and reuse all elements in this dataset without worrying about attribution or other restrictions, as it is in the Public Domain

Make it easy for others to cite you 

  • Creative Commons is a tool, not a silver bullet: It cannot fix bad science. 
  • Correct citation is essential to conduct scientific research
  • Incorrect citation and use of CC licensed materials is not only bad science, it is a copyright infringement
  • If you license your own work with CC - you have a legal basis to demand that you are cited correctly 

 

"Creative Commons 101" by Gwen Franck is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, except otherwise noted.

Thank you!

Creative Commons at #OSCAL16

By gwen

Creative Commons at #OSCAL16

Presented at OSCAL16, May 14 2016 - Tirana, Albania.

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