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What are licenses?
What are licenses?
Licenses are permissions given by the copyright holder for their content. Licenses can be applied to copyrighted material in order to give permission for certain uses of the material. Copyright is still held by the creator in these cases, but the creator has decided to allow others to use their work. Sometimes licenses are purchased and sometimes they are given freely by the creator.
Licenses can be applied to allow reuse, redistribution, derivative works, and commercial use. Creative Commons is the most frequently used and accessible free licensing scheme, but there are others that are used by certain communities. Licenses can also be applied by commercial entities that own the copyright to an item such as a journal article. These licenses generally spell out limited usage for users and are available for a fee.
Reference: Copyright and Intellectual Property Toolkit: Creative Commons, Copyleft, and Other Licenses. Authored by: John Barnett, Revision and Adaptation: Lauren B. Collister. Located at: http://pitt.libguides.com/copyright/licenses. License: CC BY: Attribution (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a form of intellectual property. The U.S. Copyright Office defines copyright as: A set of exclusive rights awarded to a copyright holder or owner for an original and creative work of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. A limited statutory monopoly that gives a copyright holder the sole right to market a work for a limited period of time.
Copyright also includes exemptions that permit a user of the copyright-protected work the right to exercise an exclusive right without authorization or royalty payment under certain conditions.
(Source: U.S. Copyright Office, “Copyright Basics” – http://copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf)
Copyright includes literary and artistic works, such as
Novels, poems, plays, and films
Musical works
Artistic works, such as drawings, paintings, photographs, and sculptures
Architectural designs
Reference: John Barnett, Revision and Adaptation: Lauren B. Collister. Located at: http://pitt.libguides.com/copyright/definitions. License: CC BY: Attribution
Public Domain
Public Domain
There are no restrictions on using works that are in the public domain, which means you can use them however you want—short of claiming that you created them yourself. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell whether or not something is in the public domain. There may be some cases when you know for sure that a work is public domain (for instance, if you find a photo or text you are sure was published before 1924*), but for the most part, the best way to find public domain content is to search for it specifically.
Public domain refers to materials for which:
The copyright has expired;
The copyright owner has intentionally and explicitly "dedicated" it to the public domain;
The copyright owner did not follow copyright renewal rules; or
Copyright law does not protect (such as works created by U.S. Government employees during the course of their employment, and works that cannot be copyrighted (such as ideas, common knowledge, data points, etc.))
The above information was adapted from "Open Educational Resources: Creative Commons" and is licensed under CC BY 4.0 / A derivative from the original work.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. Their free, easy-to-use copyright licenses provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work — under conditions of your choice. CC licenses let you easily change your copyright terms from the default of “all rights reserved” to “some rights reserved.” (Definition from Creativecommons.org)
Watch the below video on Creative Commons for a better understanding of what it entails.
To learn more about license designs, rationale, and structure of Creative Commons licenses, please read About the licenses by Creative Commons.
The above is provided in "Creative Commons Licenses" by Dr. Boyoung Chae is licensed under CC BY 4.0 / A derivative from the original work.
In the video above (access here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbQMxI310iQ), you will gain a better understanding of traditional copyright as well as the public domain and fair use. Creative commons licenses provide an alternative to both traditional copyright and the public domain. Consider how the philosophy of ‘open’ described previously differs from the philosophy behind copyright. Furthermore, consider whether issues related to fair use apply to open content.
Reference: Copyright, CC & Fair Use. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbQMxI310iQ. The Consultants-E Ltd. Category: Education
To summarize all the points we just covered, review the below infographic.
*Note: Since the creation of the above infographic the time for work published prior to 1923 has changed to work published prior to 1925 for the public domain as of 2020.
The above information was adapted from "Open Educational Resources: Creative Commons" and is licensed under CC BY 4.0 / A derivative from the original work.
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