Open Textbooks/Open Educational Resources: Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons licenses provide a way for authors and creators to easily communicate how they would like for others to interact with their creative work. Since Creative Commons licenses layer over existing copyright, let’s start by viewing “A Quick Overview of Copyright” to refresh your understanding of copyright in the United States.

One of the ways authors and creators can easily communicate use or re-use permissions is by using Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Authors can select from a suite of six licenses to share how they are willing for others to build on and further distribute their work.

Four elements are combined to create a suite of six Creative Commons (CC) licenses. Every license includes the primary element, Attribution. Understanding the meaning of each element can be useful when deciding which CC license to use on your own work.

The key thing to remember at this point is that the licenses layer over existing copyright, and that all of them require attribution. Let’s explore the four elements that combine to create CC licenses.

Four Creative Commons Elements

The four elements that combine to create the suite of Creative Commons licenses are Attribution (BY), Share-Alike (SA), Non-Commercial (SA), and No-Derivatives (ND).

	Attribution (BY) The Attribution (BY) condition is fundamental to all CC licenses. What many creators care about most is receiving credit for their creative work. When reusing CC-licensed work, proper attribution must be given to the original creator — and to other contributors on the work, if any. The CC BY license is the most open of the licenses and allows for the most re-use.
	Share-Alike (SA) The Share-Alike condition adds a requirement for anyone reusing your work to also license their own creation (based on your work) under the same license. Both the CC BY-SA and CC BY-NC-SA licenses include this condition, effectively making them ‘copyleft’ or ‘viral’ licenses. While this condition effectively “locks open” the content, remixing SA content with non-SA or other-SA licensed work may not be straightforward or allowed at all.
	Non-Commercial (NC) The Non-Commercial condition allows for reuse and sharing but reserves commercial rights for the creator. The meaning of the NC condition itself and its ability to prevent commercial reuse is not always clear, but the license condition does clearly indicate that commercial reuse rights are not being granted.
	No-Derivatives (ND) The No-Derivatives condition allows sharing and reuse but only if the content is left unchanged. This presents an issue when searching for OER, as the creator is indicating their preference that the resource be used as originally created. It does permit  changes in file-type.

Once you have an understanding of permissions described by each of the elements, you can apply that understanding to how creators combine them to communicate how they are inviting others to interact with and share their work.

In addition to understanding how others' invite collaboration through the use of Creative Commons licenses, you may also want to consider how applying a Creative Commons to your own work can contribute to collaboration in creative and scholarly environments. Keep reading to see how combining the elements into a suite of licenses communicates permissions layered over copyright.

Combining the Elements

The BY (attribution) element is a part of all the licenses. Not all of the other three elements can be combined.  For example, the SA and ND conditions do not appear in the same license because there is no reason to include the share-alike condition when no derivatives are being allowed. Together, the elements form the suite of six CC licenses:

As you find different types of OER to use in your courses, you may find the need to remix and modify the content. Understanding how the different licenses can or cannot be combined is a critical step in reusing openly licensed material. 

All six of the Creative Commons licenses include the BY or attribution condition. This is a requirement of reuse. By applying a CC license to their work, original creator has explicitly informed the user that, at the least, the attribution (BY) element must be carried forward. Providing attribution is the legal requirement of the Creative Commons licenses. 

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due

While some tools, like CC Search, include the attribution in the resource, there are other tools available to help users easily create attribution statements for work they reuse, remix, or modify. Open Washington created and maintains an Attribution Builder which builds attribution statements that can be copied and pasted into documents and websites.

When creating attribution statements a good rule of thumb is to remember the acronym TASL. 

• Title of the work
• Author (creator) of the work
• Source (link) or where the work can be found
• License of the work

For example, the attributions for this page following the TASL guidance are:

“Open Educational Resources: Basics & Beyond” by Oklahoma Council for Online Learning Excellence Member Volunteers is licensed under CC BY 4.0

“Best Practices for Attribution” by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0

“Creative Commons Licensing: Nuts & Bolts” by Carrie Gits is licensed under CC BY 4.0

“CC License Compatibility Chart” by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0

“CC License Conditions” by William Meinke is licensed under CC BY 4.0

“Putting a CC License on Your Work” by William Meinke is licensed under CC BY 4.0

Choosing a License for Your Work

Remember, when sharing your work, selecting and displaying a license with it ensures the work can be adopted and adapted how you want! If you don’t select a license, all published material may be assumed to be all rights reserved even if you intended it to be openly licensed.

When creating work to share, carefully consider how you want your work to be used when choosing which open license to apply. As the original creator of your work, you have choices.

• Do you want to allow derivatives?

• Do you want to allow for commercial purposes?

• Do you want the same license to be applied on derivatives?

• If this work was made using openly licensed material, is there a copyright provision you must follow?

Creative Commons designed the licenses to provide more options to the creator than all-rights reserved copyright. The CC License chooser is a simple tool designed to help creators decide which license is best for their work. The tool will prompt you to select the conditions you prefer for sharing your work. It will generate a license icon, statement, and code for embed and/or easy copy and paste into your work.

Identifying copyright owners and what permissions creators have layered over copyright is a key component of the open educational publication process. Using open or original materials is great, but there might some occasions which will require the use of copyrighted information. It is also important to understand when you will need to secure permission for these resources, as not every instance requires this permission and is subject to frequency of use and fair use guidelines. For additional information regarding these two issues, please consult these additional resources:

http://guides.mclibrary.duke.edu/copyright/seekingpermission

http://guides.library.oregonstate.edu/copyright/permission

http://libguides.library.kent.edu/copyright#s-lg-box-5667343

While there is no exact process to do this, there are a few best practices that you can follow.

You must first identify the correct copyright holder(s) and contact them for each item you plan to use. This can take a significant amount of time, and some publishers/authors may not grant your request at all. The copyright office provides a step-by-step guide.  Here are some sample written request letters that you can use as models:

1. https://copyright.columbia.edu/basics/permissions-and-licensing.html
2. http://guides.lib.utexas.edu/copyright/permission

Another way to seek permissions and manage possible royalty payments is to work through a licensing agency such as the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), which represents a number of publishers. The advantage of such a service is that the process for requesting use from several different publishers is more efficient, but there are fees associated with this service.

Clarke Iakovakis, the Scholarly Services Librarian for OSU Stillwater, is who I (Kathy) would suggest as the 'go-to' person for guidance regarding work with copyrighted materials that are not openly licensed. His Copyright: Overview is also super helpful. He can be reached at clarke.iakovakis@okstate.edu.

If you are ever in doubt about a particular resource, checking with an attorney is the best way to resolve any uncertainties.

Page updated 6.2.24, KE