Navigating Open Licensing: Strategies for Access and Reuse

Summary

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Takeaways

• 😀 Copyright grants protection over expressive works of original authorship like books, restricting publishing and distribution.
• 😶 Fair use allows limited use of copyrighted works for research, teaching, etc. without permission.
• 🤔 Creative Commons licenses explicitly grant permissions to access, reuse and redistribute works.
• 😊 CC licenses range from least restrictive (CC BY) to most restrictive with additional constraints.
• 😃 Open access aims to make peer-reviewed research more accessible by removing barriers like exclusive rights and subscription fees.
• 😯 Works can enter the public domain when copyright expires, rights are waived, or if created by the US government.
• 😀 Standard open licenses provide more clarity on permissions compared to uncertain fair use claims.
• 😮 Millions of openly licensed photos and multimedia are available to incorporate into educational materials.
• 🤓 Open licenses allow finding your way back to the original source material.
• 😊 Various sites offer open license, open access, and public domain multimedia for educational use.

Q & A

What are some benefits of using openly licensed materials?

Openly licensed materials are generally less restrictive than standard copyright, less confusing since permissions are explicitly defined, and allow for easier access to high quality, modifiable resources.

What is the difference between open licenses and fair use?

Open licenses grant clear permissions for reusing and redistributing materials, while fair use relies on a subjective claim that may be disputed by copyright holders.

What types of works are protected under copyright?

US copyright law grants protections over expressive works of original authorship such as books, songs, photos, and movie scripts.

What permissions does standard copyright provide to creators?

Standard copyright grants creators exclusive rights over publishing, copying, distributing, and creating derivative works.

What are some examples of open licenses?

Creative Commons and custom website licenses are common open licenses. They allow reusing materials with certain restrictions.

What is the difference between open access and public domain?

Open access refers to making research publications freely available. Public domain means works have no copyright restrictions.

Why might government research be a good source of public domain content?

The US government conducts extensive research and releases findings to the public domain by default.

How can you determine if a Creative Commons licensed work can be used commercially?

Check if the license includes "NC" for "non-commercial." Works without NC can be used commercially.

What are some benefits of proper attribution when using public domain content?

While not legally required, providing attribution is good etiquette and allows users to trace the origins of content.

Where can you find open license and public domain multimedia resources?

Many sites like those listed at the end specialize in sharing materials under open or public licenses.

Outlines

00:00

🎓 Overview of Copyright Law and Open Licensing for Educational Materials

This paragraph provides background on copyright law, fair use, and open licensing. It explains that traditional copyright can make reuse of materials difficult, while open licenses grant more permissions for access, reuse, and redistribution. Creative Commons licenses and open access for research are two types of open content.

05:01

😃 Example of Using a Creative Commons Licensed Image

This paragraph shows an example of properly attributing a Creative Commons licensed image from a MIT political science course. The license allows adaptations while requiring attribution and non-commercial use. Millions of CC-licenses multimedia resources are available.

Keywords

💡Copyright

Copyright grants legal protection and control over creative works. The video explains how open licenses provide more permissions for reusing content compared to traditional copyright.

💡Open license

Open licenses grant permission to reuse and redistribute creative works with few or no restrictions, contrasting with traditional copyright.

💡Creative Commons

A standardized set of open copyright licenses that allow content to be shared and reused if specific conditions are met.

💡Fair use

A legal exception to copyright that allows limited reuse of content without permission for purposes like education and commentary.

💡Public domain

Works not protected by copyright at all, that can be freely used without needing any permission from an owner or author.

💡Open access

Making academic research publications freely available online to improve access, often using Creative Commons licenses.

💡Attribution

Crediting the original creator of a work when reusing it, often a requirement of open licenses like Creative Commons.

💡All rights reserved

The traditional copyright notice that does not grant any permissions for reusing a creative work.

💡Open educational resources

Teaching and learning materials made freely available online, like MIT OpenCourseWare, under open licenses.

💡Multimedia resources

Types of media content like photos, videos, charts etc. that are made openly available, like from Creative Commons.

Highlights

Open licenses are an alternative to traditional copyright protection.

Standard open licenses like Creative Commons provide clear permissions for accessing, reusing, and redistributing creative works.

Each Creative Commons license explicitly defines what can and cannot be done with a work so authors and users understand permitted uses.

Creative Commons licensing allows users to find their way back to original source materials.

Open access refers to making academic research literature freely available to improve access to science.

Entering the public domain is permanent - copyrights cannot be reclaimed once waived or after expiration.

Federal government research is a great source of public domain multimedia content to use in education.

Copyright grants exclusive rights over expressive works, restricting publishing, copying, distribution and derivative uses.

Fair use allows limited reuse of copyrighted works for research, teaching, criticism or parody without permission.

Open licenses grant permissions with few restrictions compared to standard all rights reserved copyright.

The Creative Commons licenses range from least restrictive to most restrictive in allowed uses.

MIT Open Learning recommends using open license resources that have clearly defined reuse rights.

Works can enter the public domain if copyrights expire, are waived by creators, or apply to US federal government works.

Traditional academic journal copyrights and fees limit open access to research literature.

Always attribute open license and public domain works even if not legally required as a best practice.

Transcripts

GEOFFREY WILSON: Thanks for exploring teaching and learning

materials from MIT Open Learning.

We often make use of openly licensed materials

to ensure that people like you have

an access to high quality, modifiable resources

for your own educational initiatives.

My name is Geoff Wilson.

And I'm an Intellectual Property Manager here at Open Learning.

In this video, I'll be guiding you

through a few ways we identify openly licensed materials.

My hope is that you'll be able to apply

some of these strategies in your own work.

Before we go on, just a brief disclaimer--

I am not a US attorney.

And this video does not contain any legal advice.

Before open licensing, the only way

to share copyrighted material was through a direct license

or a claim of fair use.

However, now, we also have the ability

to share materials through a standard open license.

To understand the benefits of open licenses,

we're going to contrast that with traditional copyrighted

materials.

So what is copyright?

US Copyright Law grants protection

over certain types of intellectual property,

namely expressive works of original authorship,

such as books, songs, photos, and movie scripts.

US Copyright Law creates a limited exclusive right

over the protected property, which allows the copyright

holder to control publishing, copying, distribution,

and derivative uses of the work.

Even for educational and non-commercial purposes,

reuse of all rights reserved or copyrighted content

presents challenges.

On the one hand, a claim of fair use

requires thorough evaluation and documentation, basically

a justification.

And even then, a copyright holder

may demand that the content be taken down.

Third party license agreements, on the other hand,

can be time consuming and expensive.

But now, what is an open license?

Simply put, it's a content license that grants permission

to access, reuse, and redistribute a work

with few or no restrictions.

Open licenses are an alternative to traditional copyright

protection, as denoted by the copyright C symbol,

or all rights reserved R symbol.

When it comes to open licenses, there are standard ones,

like those provided by Creative Commons.

And there are also many custom or website-specific licenses

out there.

At MIT Open Learning, we recommend

using open license resources because they're

generally less restrictive than standard copyright protection.

They're also less confusing.

The rights and permissions tend to be more explicitly defined,

whereas a claim of fair use is inherently more

uncertain and subjective until a judge makes a specific ruling.

Now, there are two popular types of open content--

Creative Commons open licensing and open access.

But before we explain what those are,

I want to highlight two other alternatives or exceptions

to copyright law.

The first is the public domain, which

refers to all expressive works that are not protected

by any right of copyright.

The second is fair use, which I've already mentioned.

Fair use is an exception to exclusive rights of copyright.

While copyright owners may enjoy exclusive rights over their IP,

US law stipulates that those exclusive rights are not

absolute.

Fair use is a carve-out of those exclusive rights, which

allows use of copyrighted works for certain purposes

such as research, teaching, criticism, parody

without permission from the copyright holder.

Now, let's get back to open content.

The Creative Commons is a set of standardized copyright

licenses, which was conceived as an alternative

to traditional all rights reserved copyright.

Part of what makes them so useful

is how straightforward the licenses are.

Each element of a license is explicitly defined so that both

authors and users understand what can and cannot be done

with a given work.

On the chart, the licenses go from least

restrictive at the top to most restrictive at the bottom.

The first license is shown as CC BY, where BY simply

means that a work can be copied or distributed

in any form or fashion, so long as the original author is

credited.

Going down the list, certain other CC

licenses stipulate further restrictions,

such as no commercial use, or NC, or no derivative use,

such as ND.

With the Creative Commons symbols, what you see

is what you get.

Here is a great Creative Commons example

from an MIT political science course that's

available on OpenCourseWare.

The course homepage image shows a photo

of the US Capitol building.

Looking at the attribution, we can

see that not only did the course team do a great job of properly

attributing the source image, but we

can see that they have complied with the CC BY NC license

that the photographer stipulated.

Millions of photos and other multimedia resources

are made available online via CC and other licenses.

Here is a full-size version of the image.

Another benefit of Creative Commons

is that it allows users to find their way back

to the original source material.

The term open access is specific to peer-reviewed research.

And it comes from a movement to make research literature more

accessible.

Traditional academic journals involve exclusive rights

and subscription fees, which can be a barrier to open science.

Here's one example from a molecular biology class that's

available on the EdX platform.

On the left is a frame from the video lecture

showing the professor incorporating material

from an open access journal article into their lecture.

On the right is the original figure from the journal article

itself.

As you can see, the article itself

is copyrighted with all rights reserved by the authors.

However, they saw fit to make their work openly

accessible with a Creative Commons license.

The public domain refers to works

that are not subject to any copyrights whatsoever.

This means that such works can be

used by anyone for any purpose without the owner or author's

permission.

A work can enter the public domain for several reasons.

Its copyright has expired.

The creator waived their rights of copyright

and placed their work into the public domain.

And certain works created by or for the US Federal government

and released to the public are considered public domain

by default.

One thing to note--

entering the public domain is permanent.

Works cannot be clawed back from the public domain once rights

have been waived or after expiration of copyright.

Here's a colorful public domain resource

example taken from a fluid dynamics

course on OpenCourseWare.

The image in question comes from the US Naval Research

Laboratory.

While attribution is not required,

it's good etiquette and a best practice,

as exemplified in the caption below the figure.

Here, we see the figure blown up.

This is a global weather chart.

The federal government conducts a lot of scientific research

and observation.

So it's a great place to find content to pair

with your teaching materials.

Here is just a handful of the myriad sites

on the internet that offer up open license, open access,

and/or public domain multimedia.

These are all resources that we frequently recommend to the MIT

course teams that we work with.

Thank you for viewing this presentation.

We at MIT Open Learning hope that it provides a window

to how and where open resources are

available to be used with your new educational projects.