Open Licensing and Creative Commons
Thessaloniki, June 17, 2015
Gwen Franck (Creative Commons, EIFL)
"Open Licensing and Creative Commons" by Gwen Franck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except otherwise noted.
"All rights reserved"
Existing copyright regulation is not always adapted to the reality of research practice in 2015
- multiple authors in different countries
- multiple jurisdictions
- data mining
- crowd sourced science
- various Open Access policies
- Wikipedia ...
- social media
- translations
- civil society
- ...
"Open Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry" by Alan Levine on Flickr CC BY-SA
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 would be superfluous
"Some rights reserved"
CC is ...
- 6 licenses + 2 public domain tools
- a simplification of copyright rules
- an organisation based on volunteer work by advocates and 'open' activists
- aiming to grow 'the commons'
- a patch for broken copyright
- in favour of copyright reform
CC is not ...
- an alternative for copyright
- a rightsholder organisation
- a search engine
- a law firm
- a bunch of crazy open access fundamentalists :)
4 building blocks
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:
-
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made
-
You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
-
SA (ShareAlike)
- 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.
-
NC (Non Commercial)
-
Same conditions as CC BY, plus:
- NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes
ND
(No Derivatives)
-
Same conditions as CC BY, plus:
- NoDerivatives — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
Don't forget:
Two additional legal tools
Make sure the license you use allows for the re-use you want!
"I am so confused" by Ian Sane on Flickr CC BY 2.0
License chooser
Image by Aston University - licensed under a CC BY 4.0 license
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:
Why you should care
Research does not happen in an ivory tower...
Screenshot from the game "Monument Valley" by USTWO. (c)USTWO, all rights reserved
I didn't ask permission to use this image. But as it is clearly for educational purposes, I hope USTWO is ok with it. If not, drop me a line and I'll remove it !
Research does no longer exclusively happen behind university walls
All icons found on The Noun Project
And Civil Society has an
interest as well!
All icons found on The Noun Project
Some examples of research crossing borders
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.
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.
"Licenses remove uncertainty by spelling out what may or may not be done with the licensed work. Science is both interdisciplinary and international, crossing disciplinary and jurisdictional boundaries, and since science builds upon existing work, it depends on being able to reuse content"
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 if the work has been adapted
- state the license under which the material is available, and link to it
- when in doubt: contact the author
Making it easy for others to cite you ...
... it's simply sound scientific practice!
(btw, it's rather difficult to find the original creator of this meme. If it's you, please contact me so that I can correctly attribute you)
Incorrect citation
Photinus pyralis, a species of firefly found in the eastern United States (via wikimedia commons)
"Self portrait" [fragment] by Vincent Van Gogh, via Rijksmuseum (public domain)
(technically, you don't have to attribute when a work is in the public domain)
Some good examples
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
This is an adaptation by Gwen Franck of
"Kitten playing with String" by Bilal Khan on Flickr (CC BY-SA)
This adaptation is available under a CC BY-SA license
Sharez ur workz pwease?
- @g_fra
- gwen@creativecommons.org
- This presentation is aimed to educate audiences about correct attribution. Any wrongful attribution is therefore intentional - and where possible the correct attribution is either given or linked to. However, if you don't like that I use your work as an example, please contact me and I'll remove the reference.
"Open Licensing and Creative Commons" by Gwen Franck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except otherwise noted.