Creative Commons: A Friendlier Version of Copyright?

6 Creative Commons License Types

The 6 Creative Commons licenses are listed here in order of least restrictive to most restrictive.

BY: The least restrictive CC license allows people to use this for any purpose as long as the original author is given Attribution. People can use the works for educational use or commercial use, and can even make adaptations to the work as long as the original creator is credited with attribution. All CC licenses contain Attribution.

BY-SA: The Attribution-ShareAlike license allows users to use the work for any purpose including for commercial gain and to make adaptations to the work, as long as future users are afforded the same or similar license with the content created.

BY-NC: The Attribution-Noncommercial license allows people to use the work only for noncommerical purposes and requires attribution.

BY-NC-SA: The Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike license allows others to use the work for noncommercial purposes and provide attribution to the creator, and that derivative works (adaptations) shared with others operate under the same or a compatible license.

BY-ND: The Attribution-NoDerivatives license allows others to use the work for any purpose (even financial profit) in the original form and attribution is provided the original author. No derivative works or adaptations are allowed under any circumstance.

BY-NC-ND: The Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives license is the most restrictive CC license. It allows reuse of the work but restricts making changes of any kind to the work and prohibits commercial use under all circumstances.

3 Layer Design of CC Licenses

As a reminder, copyright is automatic when a creator fixes their creation into a tangible form, such as an artist sketch on a napkin or a songwriter recording a tune on their iPhone.

Creative Commons licenses are built to work in conjunction with copyright rather than to replace copyright. As such, this 3 layer design summarizes

1. What Creative Commons calls the "base layer" is the legal code built into the license. Like all fine print and "legalese" CC licenses have expert legal counsel that outlines what is acceptable and what is not.

2. Common Deeds are the "Human Readable" summaries of the legal code listed above that are presented in web accessible pages.

3. In the digital age, CC licenses acknowledge that creative works are used and reused in a variety of formats. CC licenses outline a wide array of freedoms and obligations associated with Machine Readable technologies, such as the metadata within software and search engines.

Creative Commons, CC-BY 4.0

The Doctrine of "Fair Use"

Fair use is defined as a legal doctrine that allows portions of copyrighted materials to be used without permission of the copyright owner provided the use is fair and reasonable, does not substantially impair the value of the materials, and does not curtail the profits reasonably expected by the owner.

Fair use is essential for teaching and learning, and determining what is "fair use" and what is not can be confusing at times. The two areas that dominate discussions around fair use include:

1. Commercial or Noncommercial use: normally this seems clear cut for educators; teachers can use materials for practically any purpose because our activities are considered "noncommercial", right? Well, not exactly...a teacher using copyrighted or protected material for a fundraiser to support a student cause would be in violation of fair use, while a for profit company engaged in volunteer or charity work may actually be allowed to use certain types of materials. The specifics of each situation determine whether the activity is commercial or noncommercial and whether fair use is in play (or not).

2. Adaptations: Depending on the license, creating derivative works (or adaptations) may or may not be permissible. In instances where adaptations are not allowed, care must be taken to determine what IS an adaptation and what is NOT.

Examples of adaptations:

• a movie based on a book
• a drawing based on a photograph
• a recording of a song remixed with an existing song

Not Adaptations:

• fixing minor spelling and punctuation errors
• compiling a collection of essays by numerous different authors into a work
• including a photo in a blog or Powerpoint

Although Creative Commons licenses are generally less restrictive than traditional copyright, and in many cases require only attribution in return for reuse, it is important to be mindful of the things you can and can not do. If you unsure of have questions, contact a librarian.

When is Using an Existing Work Considered a New Creation?

In many instances, using Creative Commons licenses is simple and easy. The tricky part is determining when reusing a work takes on the character of a new work, also called an adaptation, derivative, or remix. The terms vary depending on your locale, but all mean the same thing - creating a new work partially based on an existing work or works.

For any license listed as ND - NoDerivatives, the central question a user must ask is whether what they are doing with the work is creating a new work, or an adaptation. It is possible to modify an existing work and the changes are NOT considered an adaptation. The following are a few examples:

• Changing a document from a Word to PDF
• Making spelling or grammatical corrections
• Compiling a collection of existing licensed works. (Creative Commons defines a collection as the assembly of separate and independent creative works into a collective whole). See the example below of a collection in which chapters from two separate open textbooks have been compiled into one work. Note the first page identifies an attribution statement, a CC license for the new work, and attribution statements for the existing works.

ADAPTATIONS

First and foremost, what constitutes an adaptation is NOT universal but vary depending upon a given country's laws. In general, however, adaptations (also called derivatives or remixes) typically involve some new and original work that utilize and are based upon previously existing works. Examples of such include the following:

• a new song based on the melody of an existing song
• a book translated from English to German
• poetry in which a verse from a previous work is blended with another author's prose

Refer to the following links from Creative Commons for additional resources, examples and explanations:

• When is my use considered an adaptation?
• Compatible Licenses page