Creative Commons An Overview

Dr Tobias Schonwetter

Legal Lead CC SA

Joint Workshop on Open Educational Resources

and Intellectual Property Rights

1 June 2011

Moscow, Russia

part of the Creative Commons international initiative

My starting point:

We kind of know by now what OERs are; We agree that it’s worth having them; Now, what needs to be done?

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(1) You need authors (the human element)

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(2) You need dissemination platforms (the ICT element)

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(2) You need open licences(the legal element)

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Why?

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Well, lets have a look at one of the definitions of OERs…

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“Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials that

reside in the public domain or have been released

under an intellectual property license that permits their free use

by others. ”

The public domainPublic domain works are those works whose use is not restricted by copyright

•Copyright term expired•Works that are not copyright Works that are not copyright protected (eg protected (eg official texts of a legislative, administrative or legal nature)

Most OER materials are NOT in the public domain!

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So in order to qualify as an OER, material must be released under “an intellectual property license that permits their free use by

others”.

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But that still doesn’t explain why we need open licences

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In order to understand this, we need to briefly talk about copyright law!

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What is copyright?

Copyright is one pillar of the IP protection regime; others:

Patents

Trademarks

Designs

Copyright deals with creative works (such as text books and

journal articles)

“Copyright is the exclusive right in relation to work

embodying intellectual content to do or to authorise others to do certain

acts in relation to that work.”

make reproductions make adaptations broadcast distribute perform display in public

Exclusive rights (“certain acts”) include rights to

Basic requirements for copyright protection

Originality Material form Qualified person

no registration necessary the idea itself is NOT protected

depending on the nature of work

minimum of 50 years after the death of the author for literary works (Berne Convention)

10 30 40 5020

Duration of copyright protection

60 70

Default & automatic All Rights Reserved situation for copyright protected materials, incl

OERs

Permission is required for most uses of most works!

Unless a copyright exception and limitation

applies.

Examples

Fair dealing / fair use (study, research, private use)Exceptions for educational purposes (class-room)Exceptions for libraries and archivesQuotationsEtc.

But many of these potentially access-enabling © e&l:

only allow copying of small parts of works,

are often too vaguely crafted to be reliable access mechanisms (especially if there is a lack of domestic case law) – “rather be safe than sorry attitude”, and

they differ from one country to another.

copyright often restricts access to learning materials

and access in developing countries can often only be achieved by way of copyright infringement!

OERs are a legal alternative!

But for OERs to be OPEN, we need to get rid of at least some of the copyright restrictions.

and this can only be done through….

(MORE) OPEN LICENCES

(MORE) OPEN LICENCES

Anti-copyright - rights management tool based on copyrightThe public domain – giving certain permissions in advanceAnti-commercial – can charge for, e.g., commercial uses,

“premium” service, or embed advertisingPart of the relationship between rights holder and

userPerfect or even the best solution for every situation

and all creators Great for computer programs

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Creative Commons is not

A not-for-profit organisation of (mainly) volunteers

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Creative Commons is

a set of pre-formulated licences that allow more uses than the law usually does

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Creative Commons is

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Creative Commons is

Used worldwide – 50+ national (“ported”) CC licences

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Creative Commons is

Successful – approx. 185,000,000 licensed works by 2010

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Creative Commons is

Examples?

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SOUTH AFRICApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

SOUTH AFRICApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

SOUTH AFRICApart of the Creative Commons international initiative

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Now, how does it actually work?

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Go to www.creativecommons.org

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Click!

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Attribution Attribution-ShareAlike

Attribution-Noncommercial Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike

Attribution-NoDerivatives Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives

Click!

Click!

So what is THE BEST CC licence for OERs?

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It appears that there are 2 preferred licences (and an ongoing dispute amongst scholars as to

which one should be used):

CC BYCC BY SA

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CC Learn: “the terms of different licences are often incompatible with one another in a way that

prevents combining materials from different providers.”

[hence, CC BY should be used]

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C Lowe (“Considerations for CC licensing of Open Educational Resources: The Value of Copyleft”

[2010]) favours CC BY SA licences

To avoid appropriation and to build a sustainable education commons

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In my view the answer only can be

it depends – there is no clear-cut answer!

… driven by long-term or shorter term goals?… what kind of OER material are we dealing with?

… etc

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Lastly:

Why should we continue talking about copyright issues at UNESCO – isn’t, for

instance, WIPO better suited?

Because UNESCO looks at the issue from a different angle

(cultural/ educational considerations v economic reasoning)

… and now I am very much interested to hear about the legal problems some of my colleagues face when “porting” Creative Commons licences into

their laws

Thank you!

my email address is: tobiasschonwetter@gmail.com

[“Access to Knowledge in Africa: The role of Copyright” [2010]www.aca2k.org

“Introducing Copyright” [Hofman, COL [2009]]www.col.org/copyright ]

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Creative Commons Licence

This presentation is the work of Dr Tobias Schonwetter.

It is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 South Africa

License.

To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300,

San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.