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Part II Case Study 4 Readings


Key words: open licence, Creative Commons, GNU GPL, Attribution, Share Alike, Non Commercial

Overview: So far you have learned about using material in circumstances in which copyright doesn't apply, either because the material is in the public domain or because the Copyright Act allows you to use the material. However, the most common way of legally using copyright material is with the permission of the copyright owner. You can do anything you like with copyright material, as long as you have authority from the copyright owner, usually in the form of a licence. However, you must always be careful to obey the limits of the licence.

This week we focus particularly on the growing open access movement, which aims to create a pool of legally reusable material by making it easier for copyright owners to share their material with others, should they so choose. This is achieved by providing broad licences that creators can apply to their material to give permission in advance for certain uses. One of the most popular open access models is the Creative Commons system, which applies to creative material like movies, images, music and text and provides a range of licences with different levels of freedom. There are more than 300 million Creative Commons materials available on the internet, all of which can be legally reuse as long as the particular licence the author has chosen is obeyed. Creative Commons replaces the 'all rights reserved' system of default copyright law with a voluntary 'some rights reserved' system. 


Reading and Resources

Task Discussion