There was an interesting discussion on the OER Forum the other day about the Creative Commons (CC) license and what it really entails when it comes to practice. I just thought I’d share the initiator of the discussion so that it could continue on this blog.
I’m of the strong opinion that there is still confusion, even amongst practitioners who are using OER regularly, about what can and cannot be done within the CC framework.
Here's a specific question which was thrown at me by someone I tried to convert into an OER user:
"...can I re-use (as is) an image licensed under CC BY-NC-SA in the course material I'm developing (with proper attribution) and release the whole course material under CC BY?...".
The argument (or the catch) is that when the image is used in the course material, the course material becomes a derivative work of the image which should comply with the NC and the SA (please correct me if I'm wrong on this point as it's the starting point of the confusion; maybe a paragraph of text would be a better example rather than an image). As such, if the course material is released under CC BY, then who ever is using it under CC BY can also (in theory) use the image under CC BY as well (the second point of confusion)?; but the image is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA!
My answer to this question would be to state explicitly
"Unless otherwise specified.... this course material is released under CC BY"
which indicates that the whole course material is released under CC BY except for the components which are licensed under different licenses. This is a lesson I learnt the hard way while developing my OER based course material http://www.ishantalks.com/2012/06/oer-based-odl-course-material-web.html.
I’m no lawyer and don’t claim to be an expert in interpreting the CC licenses. To my understanding, the whole concept of the CC license is based on it being usable by lay people to express their intellectual property rights. However, looking at the complexities, it becomes apparent that this is not always the case.
The only thing which is CLEAR is that the whole thing is still a bit GRAY!
Or else we can always only use CC BY or Public Domain resources. But this is quite a challenge in practice as some of us might already know ;D.
