Open Licensing & Copyright

Open licensing is the most powerful tool available to content creators who want to make their educational resources into OER. An open copyright license grants a set of usage rights to the public that enable free and open use of the material. Open textbooks, for example, are typically distributed online at no cost and can be purchased in a variety of other print and digital formats at a low cost, including hardbound copies.

How Open Licensing Works

If you hide the copyright notice, it may be hard to tell the difference between some OER and traditional, proprietary resources. The educational content, whether it’s a textbook or support materials like online homework, test banks, and supplemental videos, is created and reviewed by experts, and it aims to cover a similar scope and sequence of topics.

What sets open resources apart are the "open" license, which enables two key features. First, OER can be legally shared, copied, and distributed, so anyone can access the material in a wide range of print and digital formats at little or no cost, without fear of expiration dates. Second, the open materials can be legally adapted by instructors, which makes it possible to add new material, change terminology, or remove unnecessary components so the resource perfectly fits an educator’s needs.

The specific license terms vary, but open licenses typically grant the right to share, adapt, translate and distribute the material as long as attribution is given to the author. Some licenses restrict commercial use or require that any derivatives retain the same license as the original.

What are Open Licenses?

Open licenses do not replace copyright; they work with copyright law to change the default setting from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved." Under U.S. law, copyright is the exclusive right to dictate how users copy, distribute and adapt a work. By default, all of those rights are reserved by the author, and anyone who wants to use it needs to get permission from the author in the form of a license. Open licenses are a particular kind of license that enable authors to grant blanket permissions to everyone, which makes it much easier for people to legally use the material in the ways the license allows.

Some common licenses for open textbooks are:

Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY): Grants the right to use, adapt and distribute as long as the author is attributed. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike (CC BY-SA): Grants the right to use, adapt and distribute as long as the author is attributed and any derivative versions use the same license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): Grants the right to use, adapt and distribute non-commercially as long as the author is attributed and any derivative versions use the same license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Not all open licenses are Creative Commons licenses. Although Creative Commons licenses are some of the most popular open licenses available, there are other options available to creators. Two examples of these other options are:

GNU Free Documentation License: Similar to CC BY-SA, except it includes some extra requirements about the source code and number of copies. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl-1.3.en.html
Public Domain Dedications: Waives the rights reserved by copyright to place the work in the public domain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain_equivalent_license

Determining Copyright Ownership

The first step to openly licensing work is to determine who owns the copyright. Under U.S. copyright law, creative work is protected by copyright from the moment of creation, and those rights are owned by the author of the work. However, authors sometimes authors sign contracts or licenses for their works, such as to a publisher. Also, for authors employed by institutions, be sure to check the relevant intellectual property policies to see who owns the work. A good place to start is your library copyright office or scholarly communications librarian. Another option is to approach your institution’s Counsel Office or other legal offices with copyright oversight about your concerns.

For works authored jointly between multiple individuals, the copyright is equally shared amongst the authors unless there is an alternate agreement. Each copyright owner can use the work as they see fit, provided that any earnings are shared equally. In this case, the authors should mutually agree to openly license a work.

Attribution: SPARC Open Education Leadership Program This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Tension Between the Exchange of Ideas and Copyright

In the past creators of content had to choose between Copyrighting their material (which required asking permission) and Public Domain (which released all rights). Content creators wanted a better system where they could retain the copyright but also share their works within specified limits. This was the inspiration for Creative Commons.

The Creative Commons video page has a transcript of this video.

Additional Resource: ASCCC OERI Webinars

Creative Commons, Copyright, and Fair Use – Why do we need OER? What is the difference between free content, open content, and fair use? Educators often overestimate what they can do with the fair use copyright exception and underestimate their options with open resources. Join us to learn about the requirements of fair use as well as how to interpret Creative Commons licenses.

Additional Attributions:

A Shared Culture by Jesse Dylan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike (CC BY-NC-SA) license.
Adapted from Frequently Asked Questions, Creative Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license