OER: Creative Commons

What is Copyright?

In many countries, when a person creates an original work that is fixed in a physical medium, they automatically own copyright to the work. As the copyright owner, they have the exclusive right to use the work. Most of the time, only the copyright owner can say whether someone else has permissions to use the work. 

Which types of work are subject to copyright?

• Audiovisual works, such as TV shows, movies, and online videos

• Sound recordings and musical compositions

• Written works, such as lectures, articles, books, and musical compositions

• Visual works, such as paintings, posters, and advertisements

• Video games and computer software

• Dramatic works, such as plays and musicals

Ideas, facts, and processes are not subject to copyright. According to copyright law, in order to be eligible for copyright protection, a work must be creative and it must be fixed in a tangible medium. Names and titles are not, by themselves, subject to copyright.

Creative Commons licenses give everyone from individual creators to large institutions a standardized way to grant the public permission to use their creative work under copyright law. From the reuser’s perspective, the presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work answers the question, “What can I do with this work?”

One goal of Creative Commons is to increase the amount of openly licensed creativity in “the commons” — the body of work freely available for legal use, sharing, repurposing, and remixing. Through the use of CC licenses, millions of people around the world have made their photos, videos, writing, music, and other creative content available for any member of the public to use. 

The Creative Commons License Options

Image source: Pixabay

The suite of licenses include core conditions:

• BY = Attribution 

• NC = Non Commercial

• ND = No Deriviative

• SA = Share Alike