What is a Creative Commons License?
CC licenses were designed to allow Creators to share their work under certain conditions and these licenses override default restrictions in copyright law.
All CC Licenses allow for Reuse and Redistribution of a work – after that there are alternative licenses based upon the following:
- Attribution: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your copyrighted work — and derivative works based upon it — but only if they give you credit.
- Noncommercial: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work — and derivative works based upon it — but for noncommercial purposes only.
- No Derivative works: You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative works based upon it.
- Share Alike: You allow others to distribute derivative works only under a license identical to the license that governs your work. http://creativecommons.ca/index.php?p=explained/
All content licenesd under a Creative Commons License can be Reused or Redistributed (i.e.Shared with others - such as in a Course Pack) without the need to contact the copyright holder. If you want to modify it in any fashion, you will need to ensure that the license does not contain a No Derivatives Works clause - which prevents others from either Remixing or Revising the content. You would want to have the right to make Derivative works if you wanted to:
- Translate a work into a different language
- Change it to suit local need (e.g. Modify it for learners at different stages of their education)
- Change formats (e.g. make an audio recording of a text)
- Mix the content in one OER with the content from another to make something new (e.g. take chapters or articles and put them together in an anthology.)
Creative Commons Licesnse that allows for the making of Derivative Works (i.e. Open Educational Resources) generally include on of three types of Creative Commons Licenses:
- Attribution License – Have the ability to do all the 4Rs PROVIDED that you give attribution to original author.
- Attribution Share-Alike License - Same as above AND all Derivative works must be shared under the same conditions that the original author shared with you.
- Attribution Share-Alike Non-Commercial License - Same as previous HOWEVER you are forbidden to use your derivative work to make money.
