Activity 9 - Licences

Activity 9

 

 

 

 

David Wiley (2007), one of the key thinkers and drivers of open content, states that primary permissions or usage rights of open content are concerned with the main points expressed in the "4Rs Framework:"

⁶¹Reuse – the right to reuse the content in its unaltered form (e.g. make a backup copy)

Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify or alter the content itself (e.g. translate the content into another language)

Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other content to create something new (e.g. incorporate the content into another work)

Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions or your remixes with others (e.g. give a copy of the content to a friend).

The Creative Commons licence has a number of different possibilities, so that the rights owner can choose whether or not to place a set of restrictions on the reuse of his/her material and what those restrictions should be. 

 

For the purposes of this Activity (postings to my blog), the Attribution -ShareAlike licence would be enough, as I cannot imagine anyone wanting to make money out of my blog. 

 

But if I were to publish something that I thought might be commercial (like a work-sheet for education purposes) then I would probably go for the Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike licence as this

license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

 

I know that Eric Moller argues against the -NC (non-commercial) licences by saying that

they make your work incompatible with a growing body of free content, even if you do want to allow derivative works or combinations.  He also says that they support current, near-infinite copyright terms, are unlikely to increase the potential profit from your work,(but if it is a non-commercial licence then you wouldn't be interested in making any profits) and a share-alike license serves the goal to protect your work from exploitation equally well.  But if you specifically want to stop other persons from profiting from your work, then I don't think that the share-alike licence alone would do this.