creative commons

A centre of expertise in digital information management

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UKOLN is supported by:

An Introduction to Creative Commons

RSC-SW event Monday 24th June 2009

Marieke Guy

Research Officer

www.bath.ac.uk

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence


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Copyright Public Domain?Have a think about whether, based on these quotations, the people were pro-copyright or for works being in the public domain

•“If I have seen further it is by standing on ye shoulders of Giants.”- Isaac Newton•“If you cannot protect what you own, you don’t own anything.”- Jack Valenti, 2002 •“I wonder what kind of world is it where anyone can sing anyone else’s song.”- Frank McCourt, Angela’s Ashes, 1996•“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” - Albert Einstein•“Diffused Knowledge Immortalizes Itself.” - Sir James Mackintosh


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Introduction to UKOLN• UKOLN is a National centre of expertise in digital

information management• Library and cataloguing background• Located at the University of Bath• Funded by JISC and MLA to advise UK HE and FE

communities and the cultural heritage sector• Many areas of work including:

– Digital preservation: DCC– Metadata, registry work– Repositories: eBank, Intute, SWORD, DRIVER– Dissemination: Ariadne, International Journal of

Digital Curation– eScience: eCrystals….etc.


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Introduction to Me• Been at UKOLN 9 years• Now a remote worker• Member of the Community & Outreach Team• Currently working on:

– Good APIs project– Chair of the Institutional Web Management

Workshop – Cultural heritage work

• Previous roles/projects include:– JISC-PoWR, JISC Standards Catalogue, QA Focus, SPP

Project Manager, ePrints UK project manager, Public Library Focus work, NOF-digitise, Web Magazines


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Workshop Programme• Presentation: Introducing Creative Commons

– 20 minutes• Do It Yourself - A chance for you to try out some of

the tools– 20 minutes

• Presentation: Creative Commons case studies– 10 minutes

• Discussion/final thoughts- A chance for you to think about the challenges– 10 minutes


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Workshop Resources• All resources (and more) linked with Delicious tag:

http://delicious.com/mariekeguy/rsc-sw-200906• Slides are available at:

http://www.slideshare.net/MariekeGuy/creative-commons

• Feel free to email me ([email protected]) or follow me on Twitter (mariekeguy)


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Copyright in the UK• Originated in the 18th century to ensure that authors

were properly remunerated for their work• Current UK copyright law is bound by:

– Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988– Copyright Act 1956– Copyright Act 1911– International Copyright Act 1886 and the Berne

Convention• Copyright comes into being as soon as the work is

fixed• The creator usually owns the rights


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The Rights of Ownership• Copyright law gives the owner of the property certain

rights:– who can copy the work– who can adapt the work– who can distribute the work

• Only the owner of the copyright has these rights• Owners of copyright may provide a set of permissions

in the form of a licence:– set the parameters for copying– allow (or not) certain forms of adaptation– limit (or not) distribution rights etc.

• Someone who agrees to be bound by the constraints of the licence is a licensee


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So What is Creative Commons?

• Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright (all rights reserved) and the public domain (no rights reserved).

• CC licenses allow creators to retain copyright, while inviting certain uses of the work, a "some rights reserved" copyright


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Where does CC come from?• Creative Commons is a movement that has evolved

from open source software ideas and licences • Creative Commons was founded in 2001 by a group of

American legal academics, creators and entrepreneurs

• Board of Directors that includes cyberlaw and IP experts Michael Carroll, Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, Lawrence Lessig, filmmakers, entrepreneurs, journalist

• The idea was to generate a number of easy-to-use licences with which creators could share their work to the public while maintaining certain control over it

• There are now 130 million works using CC licences (April 2009)


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http://creativecommons.org/

http://creativecommons.org/


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CC Baseline Rights• Licensors retain their copyright• Fair use (fair dealing), free speech and other rights

are not affected by licence• Licensees will have to obtain specific permission to

perform one of the acts restricted by the licence • Copyright notices should be maintained in all copies

of the work• Every copy of the work should maintain a link to the

licence• Licensees cannot use Technical Protection Measures

on their work• Licensees cannot alter any terms of the licence• Licences apply worldwide, last for the duration of the

work’s copyright and are not revocablehttp://wiki.creativecommons.org/

Baseline_Rights

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Baseline_Rights


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CC Licence Elements• Attribution: The work is made available to the public

with the baseline rights, but only if the author receives proper credit

• Non-commercial: The work can be copied, displayed and distributed by the public, but only if these actions are for non-commercial purposes.

• No derivative works: This licence grants baseline rights, but it does not allow derivative works to be created from the original.

• Share-Alike: Derivative works can be created and distributed based on the original, but only if the same type of licence is used, which generates a “viral” licence.

• "Derivative Work" means any work created by the editing, modification, adaptation or translation of the Work in any media


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Types of Licenceby Attribution

by-nc Attribution - Non Commercial

by-sa Attribution - Share Alike

by-nd Attribution - No Derivatives

by-nc-sa Attribution - Non Commercial - Share Alike

by-nc-nd Attribution - Non Commercial - No Derivatives

http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses

http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses


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Other Licences• Sampling Plus• Noncommercial Sampling Plus • Retired Licences

– Sampling Licence– Developing Nations

• Public Domain Certification (PDC)• Founders Copyright • CC0 (worldwide)• Open Source licences


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http://creativecommons.org/license/

http://creativecommons.org/license/


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Human-ReadableCommons Deed

Lawyer Readable Legal Code

Machine-ReadableDigital Code

Forms of Licence

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/devnations/2.0/

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/devnations/2.0/legalcode

http://creativecommons.org/license/work-html-popup?license_code=devnations


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Licence Metadata• Resource Description Framework (RDF) metadata is

used in the machine readable licence• Lines of code given to you with licence• You can also embed metadata in RSS, Audio (MP3

and Ogg), XMP (PDF, image formats), SMIL• Working on other formats• For non-Web content it is suggested you embed a

link to a licence information page • You can embed metadata using CC tools e.g. in MP3s

using ccPublisher


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International CC• CC licences originally written using an American legal

model• The licences were popular and adopted by users all

around the world• However, there was a possibility that there might be

validity problems in some jurisdictions• iCommons - offshoot of the licensing project

dedicated to the drafting and eventual adoption of jurisdiction-specific licences– 52 jurisdictions have completed licences (April

2009)– 7 jurisdictions licences are being developed – at least 70 local jurisdiction licenses expected


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CC in the UK• CC-UK project started late 2003• Complexities of UK law meant creation of 2 set of

licences• CC United Kingdom: England and Wales

– Completed April 2005 (version 2.0)– Licence ported by Programme in Comparative Media

Law and Policy at Oxford University – Still using version 2.0

• CC United Kingdom: Scotland– Completed December 2005 (version 2.5)– Licence ported by the AHRB Centre for Studies in

Intellectual Property and Technology Law at Edinburgh University

– Still using version 2.5• Ireland licence still in draft


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iCommons• Organisation with a broad vision to develop a united

global commons front• Collaborating with open education, access to

knowledge, free software, open access publishing and free culture communities around the world

• Features projects that encourage collaboration across borders and communities

• Organised the iSummit in 2008• Has 50 nodes all over the world


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Other CC Work• Science Commons• Video• ccLearn• Tools - CC Publisher, CC

lookup, browser plugins• Searching• Blog, Wiki and mailing lists• Fundraising• Features on relevant artists

http://sciencecommons.org

http://sciencecommons.org


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Wikipedia• May 21st 2009 - Wikipedia

community votes 75% in favour of CC BY-SA

• Vote carried out for members who had made over 25 edits to a Wikimedia site

• Previously GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL)

• Now dual licensing – users can choose which licence to use

• This change is meant to advance the Wikimedia Foundation’s mission by increasing the compatibility and availability of free content


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Searching CC Material• CC Search• Content Directories• Google advanced search• Yahoo advanced search• Flickr advanced search• Adding your search engine to CC Search

– CCSearch integration– CCOpen Search

• Firefox extension• Finding free to use images online

http://search.creativecommons.org/

http://search.creativecommons.org/


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Do It Yourself (20 Minutes)1. Have a think about a work you’ve created and would

like to create a CC licence for2. Create a licence at:

http://creativecommons.org/license/3. Think of an image you would like to find4. Search for CC materials at:

http://search.creativecommons.org/5. Watch some of the CC videos at:

http://creativecommons.org/videos/


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CC Case Studies• Roger McGuinn’s Folk Den• Vores Øl (Our Beer) • QA Focus• MIT’s Open Courseware• Accelerando• Elephants Dream• Nine Inch Nails album


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Roger McGuinn’s Folk Den • Roger McGuinn of the Byrds established the Folk Den in

1995 as a way to use the Web to carry on the American folk music tradition

• McGuinn publishes his own performances of traditional (public domain) songs alongside performances of his own songs

• He posts the songs, the chords, the lyrics, images and a little story about each item

• McGuinn makes every recording available for download under a US CC Attribution-NoDerivs-NonCommercial 3.0 Licence

• He shares the public domain material, but when he records a solo CD of new material it is kept in traditional copyright

• McGuinn feels the key is spreading and preserving traditional folk songs


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QA Focus #1• QA Focus was funded by JISC to develop a quality

assurance (QA) framework which would help ensure that project deliverables funded under JISC’s digital library programmes were functional, widely accessible and interoperable

• During the project over 70 briefing papers and over 30 case-studies were released on a variety of subjects

• These resources are available in a number of formats from the QA Focus Web site

• As part of the project’s exit strategy it was decided to release the documents under a licence in order to in maximise impact across the community

• Three possibilities were considered:– Develop a bespoke licence– Modify an existing licence– Use an existing licence


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QA Focus #2• After a review of available options the CC Attribution-

NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence was chosen for the briefing papers

• It was decided *not* to use the CC licence on the case studies due to IPR issues

• The briefing papers were updated to include the CC logo and text

• The machine-readable description of the licence was embedded in RDF format on the HTML pages

• This structured rights metadata allows search engines to provide much richer searching capabilities

• Briefing papers continue to be added to the QA Focus Web site and are all available under a CC licence


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Vores Øl (Our Beer) #1• “Free software is a matter of liberty, not price. To

understand the concept, you should think of 'free' as in 'free speech,' not as in 'free beer.”

• Open source beer produced by a group of students from the IT University of Copenhagen, in collaboration with Superflex, an art organisation

• Version 1.0 is a medium strong beer (6% vol) with a deep golden red colour and an original but familiar taste!

• It has added guarana for a natural energy-boost!


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Vores Øl (Our Beer) #2• The recipe and brand are licenced under an

Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 licence• Anyone can use the recipe to brew the beer or to

create a derivative of the recipe. Brewers can earn money from Our Beer, but have to publish the recipe under the same licence and credit the original work.

• People can also use all the design and branding elements, and are free to change them at will provided they publish the changes under the same licence

• The Vores Øl Web site also has a a forum for sharing sounds and music related to Our Beer called Sound Bazaar


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MIT Open Courseware #1• In 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

announced that they would be creating Open Courseware in order to: – provide free, searchable, coherent access to MIT's

course materials for educators in the non-profit sector, students, and individual learners around the world.

– Create an efficient, standards-based model that other universities may emulate to publish their own course materials

• The pilot site went live in September 2002• There are currently over 1,100 courses are available


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MIT Open Courseware #2• The site is free and open educational resource for

faculty, students, and self-learners around the world• It does not require any registration, but does not

grant degree certificates or access to MIT faculty• In January 2003 the OCW initiative adopted a slightly

modified version of the Creative Commons licence• MIT Open Courseware License Version 1.0 • It is similar to an Attribution-NonCommercial-

ShareAlike Licence• ‘How to’ Web site aims to inspire other institutions to

openly share their course materials


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Accelerando #1• Charles Stross is a science fiction novelist based in

Edinburgh, Scotland• He has published a number of novels and numerous

short stories (in various SF magazines)• In order to put it to good use Stross released Scratch

Monkey, a short novel that he finished in 1993, on his Web site under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 licence

• In 2005 Stross released a new Novel, titled Accelerando, as a free ebook under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 licence

• The novel is available in a number of formats - plain HTML, rich Text format, PDF, Plucker e-book, Palm DOC format, ASCII

• It is also available to buy online and from bookstores for $24.95


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Elephants Dream #1• 3D animated short created using only Open Source

tools by the Orange Open Movie Project • Supported by the Blender Foundation and the

Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts

• Project was community-financed• Released on 18 May 2006 as a free and public

download, by the end of May half a million downloads• The Open Movie project involved opening up the

entire studio database for everyone to re-use and learn from


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Elephants Dream #2• The film and production files are licensed as Creative

Commons Attribution 2.5 Licence• Use requires a proper crediting for public screening,

re-using and distribution only• Large collection of files so information explaining

what/how to credit• Logos and DVD cover excluded from CC• By June some edited versions of the film have started

to appear, new soundtrack, edited images etc.


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Nine Inch Nails• In 2008 NIN released 2 albums: Ghost I-IV and Slip under

a CC licence• Released under a US CC Attribution-Noncommercial-

Share Alike 3.0• Both albums were downloaded for free and shared legally

millions of times by fans under the terms of this licence • At the same time, NIN found great financial success in

selling cool, well-crafted, limited edition physical editions of both sets

• Apparently NIN made at least $750k from CC release in just two days

• Nominated for Grammy awards• Many other writers following (e.g. Radiohead, Jay

Bennett)


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CC Issues• Do CC licences change the nature of copyright?• Do CC licences change the set of rights that may be

licensed by the copyright holder, the licensor?• Do Creative Commons licences change the set of

permissions available to the licensee?• No – the set of available rights remains exactly

as it was and is • But CC is not always a green light – you still need to

use your common sense


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CC for Information ProfessionalsInformation professionals are:• Key participants in creative culture• Guardians of the commons • They will want to:

– have clear examples to hand as to how to use Creative Commons licences direction, in combination, and in conjunction with material that does not have a CC licence

– consider metadata schemes for capturing licence use on a per item basis

– be wary of technological solutions to digital rights management as these violate the CC licence


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Questions?

creative commons

Education