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Creating open educational resources
Creating open educational resources

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4.1 Creative Commons licensing

When you view the video you should look at the section on why you should choose Creative Commons, which aims to illustrate the benefits of applying a Creative Commons licence to some of your institution’s works and puts the easy-to-understand terms and symbols in an international context.

Creative Commons is an organisation that has created and made available a suite of CC non-exclusive licences for the licensing of copyright works without payment to the general public.Creative Commons does not give permissions on behalf of rights owners; it provides the licences for rights owners to use. 

In order to clear up any misunderstanding about Creative Commons, you should be aware of some fundamentals:

  • Creative Commons (CC) licences do not replace copyright. They are a suite of (non-exclusive) licences provided by the Creative Commons organisation to facilitate and encourage rights owners (including educators) in the wider dissemination of copyright works for the mutual benefit of all communities. It reduces or eliminates onerous administrative time granting permissions and deciphering complex licences, which takes place in the absence of licences such as CC.
  • Creative Commons licensing is non-exclusive, which means the licence does not apply to rights owners who have made their works available and they remain in control of their copyright works to licence in other ways (for payment, for example) should they so wish.
  • You have a choice of licence or licences to suit your project.
  • Creative Commons licences are not educational licences but available to all rights owners. However, Creative Commons licensing is very popular (and appropriate) within educational communities.
  • The licences are designed to be easily understood (without lawyers) internationally in both their wording and symbols.
  • Educators can search and locate resources under Creative Commons licences.
  • Creative Commons licensing is for works protected by copyright only. However, it is not appropriate for licensing software that is more suitably licensed through other public licences available on the internet, such as from the Free Software Foundation. The wraparound documentation may be licensed through Creative Commons Licensing.
  • A Creative Commons licence is non-revocable. This basically means that if you change your mind on the type of licence you have put your work out under – that is fine. However, the works already accessed and being used under that licence remain valid. So ensure you consider and are happy with your content being used in this way, even if you change your mind later on.
  • Fair dealing, fair use and other exceptions to copyright are preserved.
  • Moral rights are preserved by rights owners.
  • Please go to the Creative Commons website [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] for further information.