Tag: Open licence

How do I pick a Creative Commons licence for my work?

11 January 2022 /
The colourful infographic from Aston University (licensed CC-BY) is a tree diagram explaining how creators can choose different Creative Commons licenses. It presents green leaves on the tree branches, a blue sky with clouds in the background, and a grassy ground with flowers. The overall design is friendly and visually appealing, making the information accessible and easy to understand. The image is titled "Creative Commons Licence Chooser” and briefly explains Creative Commons licences. It reads: "Creative Commons (CC) licences complement copyright by permitting sharing and reuse of published content with conditions." The Tree Diagram Structure has multiple branches, each representing a different Creative Commons licence. The branches split on whether the licence will allow commercial use and whether adaptations of the work are permitted. Each branch has green leaves with text indicating the licence type and answers to specific questions about the licence conditions. Starting from the trunk, the first question is, “Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?”. A positive answer will follow with a further question, “Allow commercial uses of your work?” if the chooser’s answer is positive, then the work will be licensed CC BY (Attribution); if it is negative, the licence will be CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial). If the answer to the first question, “Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?” was positive if others share alike, a further question will follow again to ascertain whether commercial uses of the work will be allowed: if the chooser’s answer is positive, then the work will be licensed CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike); if it is negative, the licence will be CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike). If the answer to the first question, “Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?” was negative, a further question will follow again to ascertain whether commercial uses of the work will be allowed: if the chooser’s answer is positive, then the work will be licensed CC BY-ND (Attribution-NoDerivs); if it is negative, the licence will be; CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs)

Please note that commonly, the Non-Derivative element (ND) of a Creative Commons licence makes the work released NOT with an open licence.

Find here a further infographic, also from Aston University:

The image is an infographic titled "Creative Commons Licences - Know the Difference". It explains Creative Commons (CC) licences, which allow content creators to specify how others can use their work. There are six types of CC licences: CC BY (it allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as credit is given to the original creator); CC BY-SA (others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the creator and license new creations under identical terms); CC BY-ND (it allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and with credit to the creator); CC BY-NC (others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, and their new works must acknowledge the creator and be non-commercial; CC BY-NC-SA (others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as they credit the creator and license new creations under identical terms; and CC BY-NC-ND (it allows others to download the works and share them with others as long as they credit the creator, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially). The infographic includes icons representing each licence type and conditions, such as Attribution, No Derivative Works, Non-Commercial, and Share Alike.

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

3. Licences

10 January 2022 /

Licences allow copyright owners to permit others to use the owned work. They can be exclusive, non-exclusive and open.

Licences should not be confused with the assignment of rights, where the copyright ownership is transferred from one entity to another.

The reuse of material has to fall within the terms allowed by the licence chosen by the copyright holder, apart from the following scenarios:

  1. As a user, you can justify the application of one of the copyright exceptions or
  2. The material is in the public domain and, hence, not subject to any licences.

Licenced material may be purchased through paid agreements (for example, through an institutional licence or contracts) or accessed for free if released to the public with an open licence or following an ad hoc permission granted by the copyright holder.

Look at the following categories to know more:

Can I use third-party-owned resources for teaching?
You might breach copyright law if you upload third-party-owned resources …
Which licences does the Coventry University Group manage centrally?
Downloaded and scanned materials such as book chapters and journal …

What are open licences?
A free or open licence is a licensing
agreement that allows individuals…

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

How do I acknowledge Free Art licensed material?

14 December 2021 /

Free Art Licence grants the right to freely copy, distribute, and transform creative works without any changes. It needs to be acknowledged in the following way:

[author], “[title]”, [date of the work]. [where to find the originals]. Copyleft: This is a free work. You can copy, distribute, and modify it under the terms of the Free Art License http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en/

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

How do I acknowledge Open Government licensed material?

14 December 2021 /

Open Government licensed material is released by the British government and licences to the public under certain conditions.

You must acknowledge the source of the information, including or linking to any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to the licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, you must use the following:

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

If you are using information from several information providers and listing multiple attributions is not practical for your product or application, you may include a URI or hyperlink to a resource that contains the required attribution statements.

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

What are open licences?

13 December 2021 /

A free or open licence is a licensing agreement that allows individuals to reuse another creator’s work. This use is granted by the copyright owner at the start.

Some of the most common licences are as follows:

Please note that works in the public domain are free to be used, but licences do not regulate them.

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

What is the Free Art Licence?

13 December 2021 /

Free Art Licence grants the right to freely copy, distribute, and transform creative works without any changes.

It is compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) licence.

How do you reference Free Art licensed material?

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

What is the Open Government Licence?

13 December 2021 /

The Open Government Licence for public sector information is a copyright licence for Crown Copyright works published by the UK government.

Other UK public sector bodies may apply it to their publications.

It was developed and is maintained by The National Archives. It is compatible with the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

How do I acknowledge Open Government licensed material?

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

How can I use works on Wikimedia and Wikipedia?

10 December 2021 /

Wikimedia and Wikipedia’s material minimum standard licence is the Creative Commons By Attribution ShareAlike.

You will be able to find material labelled with the Creative Commons By Attribution and the public domain.

Please note that Wikimedia and Wikipedia’s material are distributed under the US copyright law. Use care in selecting items licensed in the public domain are not necessarily so in the UK or other countries. It is advisable to follow the link to the original source and seek released and licence information from it rather than rely on what is displayed on Wikipedia/Wikimedia.

Assuming that the work is correctly licensed from Wikimedia, you may click on the world icon to discover the following:

  • Page URL
  • File URL
  • Preferred attribution
  • Scripts to embed both attribution and file

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

What are the six Creative Commons licences?

10 December 2021 /

When combined, the four licence elements form the six CC licences:

A rectangle circumscribing two circles next to each other: one slightly bigger with the letter CC and the second with a graphic of a man.
CC BY

Attribution lets others distribute, remix, tweak and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as it is credited to the original owner.

BY – Credit must be given to the creator

A rectangle circumscribing three circles next to each other: one slightly bigger with the letter CC, the second with a graphic of a man and the third with a line through over a $ sign.
CC BY NC

Attribution-NonCommercial lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially. Although the new works must acknowledge the original owner and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

A rectangle circumscribing two circles next to each other: one slightly bigger with the letter CC and the second with a C-shaped arrow pointing counter-clockwise.
BY SA

Attribution-ShareAlike lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even for commercial purposes, as long as the original copyright owner is credited and the new creation is licensed under identical terms.
All new works will carry the same licence so that any derivatives will allow commercial use.

BY – Credit must be given to the creator
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

A rectangle circumscribing three circles next to each other: one slightly bigger with the letter CC, the second with a graphic of a man and the third with an equal “=” sign.
BY ND

Attribution-NoDerivs allows for commercial and non-commercial redistribution as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the original copyright owner.

BY – Credit must be given to the creator
ND – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

A rectangle circumscribing four circles next to each other: one slightly bigger with the letter CC, the second with a graphic of a man, the third with a line through over a dollar “$” sign, and the fourth with a C-shaped arrow pointing counter-clockwise.
BY NC SA

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as the original owner is credited and the licence of the new creation is under identical terms.

BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

A rectangle circumscribing four circles next to each other: one slightly bigger with the letter CC, the second with a graphic of a man, the third with a line through over a dollar “$” sign, and the fourth a with an equal “=” sign.
CC BY NC ND

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs is the most restrictive of the six licences, allowing others to download and share work, as long as they credit it to the original copyright owner; however, works cannot be changed in any way or used commercially.

BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only non-commercial uses of the work are permitted
No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

In addition, CC also has two public domain tools, though they are not licences.

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Adapted from “About CC Licenses” © Creative Commons. Licensed under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

How do the Creative Commons licences work technically?

10 December 2021 /

The licences are built using a three-layer design:

  1. The legal code is the “lawyer-readable” terms and conditions legally enforceable in court.
  2. The commons deeds summarize the legal code and consist of web pages that lay out the key licence terms in “human-readable” format.
  3. The machine-readable version makes it easy for websites and web services to know when a work is available under a CC licence – a recognition that software plays a critical role in creating, copying, discovering, and distributing works.
Three layers are stacked vertically and slightly separated to show their sections clearly. They represent visually the Creative Commons licences, where each layer is labelled and visually distinct: the top layer, labelled "Machine Readable” and featuring a barcode, indicates the layer designed for straightforward interpretation by computers and software; the middle layer, labelled "Human Readable" and showing two icons (A graphic of a man inside a circle next to a C-shaped arrow pointing counter-clockwise inside a second circle), signifies that this part of the license is written in a way that is easily understandable by people; and a bottom layer, labelled "Legal Code" with a faded appearance and including the same markets as the latter, represents the formal, legal text of the license, providing the detailed legal framework.
Three layers of the licence sit on top of each other. Layers © Creative Commons. Licensed under a CC BY 4.0 licence

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

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