“ The story of Creative Commons begins with copyright. You’ll learn a lot more about copyright later in this book, but for now it’s enough to know that copyright is an area of law that regulates the way the products of human creativity are used—products like books, academic research articles, music, and art. Copyright grants a set of exclusive rights to a creator, so that the creator has the ability to prevent others from copying and adapting their work for a limited time. In other words, copyright law strictly regulates who is allowed to copy and share with whom. ”

“ A big part of any educator’s work is preparing, updating, and combining learning materials. Making those materials open requires just a few additional steps, and it’s easier than you think. What are those steps? What should you consider and expect when you want to create and publish your resources in the open?
When we share our education resources as OER, we share our best practices, our expertise, our challenges and solutions. Education is about sharing. And when we share our work with more people, we become better educators. ”

“ Creative Commons is a set of legal tools, a nonprofit organization, a global network and a movement—all inspired by people’s willingness to share their creativity and knowledge, and enabled by a set of open copyright licenses. ”

“ Sharing your content using Creative Commons licenses is generous, but that alone is not enough to make it easy for others to reuse and remix your work. You should spend some time thinking from the perspective of someone who finds your shared content. How easy is it for them to download, reuse, and revise it? Are there legal or technical obstacles that make it difficult for them to do the things the CC license is designed to allow? ”

“ Like the public domain, the exceptions and limitations to copyright are just as important as the exclusive rights that copyright grants. Think of them as a safety valve for the public in order to be able to utilize copyrighted works for particular uses in the public interest. You should educate yourself about the exceptions and limitations that apply in your country, so you can take advantage of and advocate for these critical user rights. ”

“ Copyright law is an important area of law, one that reaches into nearly every facet of our lives, whether we know it or not. Aspects of our lives that in some instances are not regulated by copyright—like reading a physical book—become regulated by copyright when technology is used to share the same book by posting it to the Internet. Because almost everything we do online involves making a copy, copyright has become a regular feature in our lives. ”

“ Copyright Law
Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright. They are built on top of it. The default of “all rights reserved” copyright means that all rights to copy and adapt a work are reserved by the author or creator (with some important exceptions that you will learn about shortly) . By contrast, Creative Commons licenses adopt a “some rights reserved” approach, enabling authors or creators to free up their works for reuse by the public under certain conditions. To understand how Creative Commons licenses work, it is important that you have a basic understanding of copyright. ”

“ As an organization and a movement, Creative Commons supports strong exceptions and limitations to copyright. But the vision of Creative Commons—universal access to research and education and full participation in culture—will not be realized through licensing alone. Creative Commons supports a copyright system that appropriately balances the rights of creators and the rights of users and the general public. ”

“ Open Education is an idea, as well as a set of content, practices, policies, and communities which, when properly leveraged, can help everyone in the world access free, effective, open learning materials at either zero or marginal cost. We live in an age of information abundance where everyone, for the first time in human history, can potentially attain all the education they desire. The key to this transformational shift in learning is Open Educational Resources (OER) . ”

“ What is important to know is that copyright law does not require permission from the creator for every use of a copyrighted work—some uses are permitted as a matter of copyright policy, which balances the sometimes competing interests of the copyright owner and the public. ”

“ Creative Commons’ founders recognized the mismatch between what technology enables and what copyright restricts, and in response they have provided an alternative approach for creators who want to share their work with others. Today this approach is used by millions of creators around the globe. ”

“ Openness in education means more than just access or legal certainty over what you are able to use, modify, and share with your learners. Open Education means designing content and practices which will ensure that everyone can actively participate and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. As educators and learners revise others’ OER and create and share new OER, accessibility should always be on your design checklist. ”

“ This doctrine generally provides that if you have created a copyrightable work within the scope of your employment, the employer is the owner of, and controls the economic rights in the copyrighted work, even though you are the author and may retain your moral rights. Independent contractors may or may not own and control copyright in the works they create in that capacity—this determination almost always depends on the terms of the contract between you and the organization that engaged you to perform the work, even though you are the author and may have moral rights. ”

“ Remember, you can always reach out to the creator if you want to request extra permission beyond what the license allows.
Final Remarks
Attribution is arguably the single most important aspect of Creative Commons licensing. Think about why you want credit for your own work, even when it may not be legally required. What value does attribution provide to authors, and to the public who comes across the work online? ”

“ A common question of copyright creators and users of their works is which nation’s copyright law applies to a particular use of a particular work. Generally, the rule of territoriality applies: national laws are limited in their reach to activities taking place within that country. This also means that generally speaking, the law of the country where a work is used applies to that particular use. If you are distributing a book in a particular country, then the law of the country where you are distributing the book generally applies. ”

“ What kind of learning resources do you create now? Do you publish or share these resources with other people for feedback? Which of your resources do you think could benefit fellow educators, learners, researchers, and libraries? If you choose to share, how much freedom do you want to give to others; in other words, what permissions will you allow for others to reuse your work?
For an introduction on why it is important to share your work as an OER, watch the video Open Education Matters: Why Is It Important to Share Content? ”

“ They created a nonprofit organization called Creative Commons and, in 2002, they published the Creative Commons licenses—a set of free, public licenses that would allow creators to keep their copyrights while sharing their works on more flexible terms than the default “all rights reserved” approach. Copyright is automatic, whether you want it or not; the moment an original work is fixed in tangible form, it is protected by copyright. And while some people want to reserve all of the rights to their works, many others want to share their works with the public more freely. ”

“ The term of copyright had been continually extended over the years. The end of a copyright term is important—it marks the moment when a work moves into the public domain, whereupon everyone can use that work for any purpose without permission. ”

“ A CC license on a given work only covers the copyright held by the person who applied the license—the licensor. This might sound obvious, but it is an important point to understand. For example, many employers own the copyright to works created by their employees, so if an employee applies a CC license to a work owned by their employer, they are not able to give any permission whatsoever to reuse the work. The person who applies the license needs to be either the creator or someone who has acquired the rights to the work. ”

“ Many universities have adopted open access policies that require university-affiliated researchers to grant to their institution a non-exclusive license to a scholarly article at the time of the creation of the work. This process heads off problems with publishers downstream, since the university retains a legal right to the work before copyright is transferred to a publisher. These policies have proliferated under the assumption that universities themselves should be able to access and preserve the research outputs of their faculty. ”

“ The purpose of scientific inquiry at a university is the fundamental search for knowledge. Teaching, the open exchange of ideas, and the process of publishing original research are all methods by which academic faculty, learners, staff, and others contribute to advancing scholarship. ”

“ Creative Commons licenses are standardized tools, but part of the vision is to provide a range of options for creators who are interested in sharing their works with the public rather than reserving all rights under copyright. ”

“ Formal education, even in the age of the Internet, can be more expensive and less flexible than ever. In many countries, the publishers of educational materials overcharge for textbooks and other resources. As part of their transition from print to digital, these same companies have largely moved away from a model where learners purchase and own books to a “streaming” model where they have access to those resources for only a limited time. ”

“ When educational institutions support their educators, staff, and learners in moving from closed to open content and practices, Open Education thrives. Educators want to design the best courses, adjust their practices and pedagogy to empower learners to co-create knowledge, and push the limits of knowledge by openly sharing their ideas and resources with a global audience. ”

“ Universities play a major role in advancing scientific research, and academic publishing is a key mechanism for faculty to communicate their findings to colleagues and the public. As organizers of knowledge within institutions, librarians can work together with university researchers to promote access to information. They can do this by educating on the “how” and “why” of open access, answering questions about copyright, and providing guidance and recommendations to maximize the reach and impact of scholarly publishing in particular fields. ”