053.1 Lesson 1
Certificate: |
Open Source Essentials |
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Version: |
1.0 |
Topic: |
053 Open Content Licenses |
Objective: |
053.1 Concepts of Open Content Licenses |
Lesson: |
1 of 1 |
Introduction
Think about this hypothetical situation: Frank is a writer who wants to make some of his stories available to anyone on the internet, but under certain conditions. He wants his work to be free of cost. He wants anyone to be able to use the stories without asking for permission, but he doesn’t want his work to be used commercially. Finally, he wants people to credit him properly if the stories are used for any purpose. He would like to do this without involving himself in complicated legal processes. We’ll see later why a writer might want to do these things.
Emma is a filmmaker who teaches some students how to produce short films. Among other things, the students need a story to create their works. Emma knows Frank’s stories and thinks they are perfect for her class.
What can Frank do to allow Emma to use his stories? This situation and many more can be solved by using an open content licensing model. Nowadays, millions of copyright-protected works can be reused by anybody without explicit consent from the copyright holder or the payment of a license fee, thanks to their distribution under open content licenses. Resources such as Wikipedia, Flickr, OpenStreetMap, Unsplash, and Jamendo are some examples of the many platforms that use this license model.
According to a very broad definition, open content refers to any work (including, for example, movies, music, images, texts, databases, data sets, documentation, maps, and hardware designs) whose free use and redistribution is permitted under copyright law. This also includes originally protected works whose term of protection has expired and which are therefore in the public domain. A somewhat narrower definition presupposes that a work has been explicitly placed under an open content license by its author, which allows use and distribution of the work without any payment or permission. The open content model is therefore not in opposition to copyright law, but complements it.
Copyright Fundamentals
Because open content licenses are based on copyright, you need to learn some aspects of copyright law in order to understand why the licenses are needed and what they allow.
Copyright is a part of a legal category known as intellectual property. Copyright protects original works by granting its creators exclusive legal rights to control certain uses of their works by other people and corporations. Generally, this means that no one else can copy, distribute, publicly perform, adapt, or do almost anything else other than view or read the work without the permission of the copyright holder.
The fundamentals we will examine in this section include what is copyrightable, along with who controls the rights and can grant permission to reuse a copyrighted work as Emma wants to do in our example.
As explicitly stated by the World Intellectual Property Organization:
Copyright protects two types of rights. Economic rights allow right owners to derive financial reward from the use of their works by others. Moral rights allow authors and creators to take certain actions to preserve and protect their link with their work. The author or creator may be the owner of the economic rights or those rights may be transferred to one or more copyright owners. Many countries do not allow the transfer of moral rights. Copyright only protects the expression of facts or ideas. It does not allow the copyright holder to own or control the idea exclusively. For example, an illustration can be copyrighted but not the idea that originated it.
Understanding Copyright and Related Rights
Economic rights protected by copyright last a long time, generally decades after the creator dies. Moral rights never expire.
Copyright grants rights to creative works, such as literary and artistic creations that must meet a certain standard of originality. The work must be a creation of its creator and not copied from another work. (There are ongoing debates about how much artificial intelligence can go into a work and still have it be considered original.)
Copyright protects only the expression of facts or ideas. It does not allow the copyright holder to own or control the idea exclusively. For example, an illustration can be copyrighted, but not the idea that originated it.
Copyright is automatic when a work is created and fixed in some tangible form, for example, a digital artwork or a song. This means that the rights are granted to the creator without even formally registering the work.
The people who promote open content licensing want to promote a free culture and the development of a digital commons. They have found the copyright system too restrictive and rigid for both users and creators. By creating easy-to-use standard licenses, the open content advocates simplify the use and distribution of works protected by copyright.
What Can Be Copyrighted?
Copyright laws vary from country to country. However, there are international agreements to standardize copyright laws. Original literary and artistic works can be copyrighted: for example, works in art, music, photography, film, television, literature, and programming. The particular rules to decide what is copyrightable, and how original a work is, vary depending on the region.
Sometimes these categories can be very general and apply to works that have both creative and strictly functional elements: For example, a short film is considered artistic work. However, portions of it can be uncopyrightable if they do not meet the standard of originality.
Derivative Works
Let’s continue with the hypothetical situation from the beginning of the lesson: Frank ultimately decided to publish his stories under an open content license so they can be used under the terms he chose. Since the stories came under that license, Emma used them in her class and decided to show some of her students' short films during a film festival. In this case, the content created by the students can be considered derivative works.
A derivative work or adaptation is a work based on existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, or any other form in which the original work is transformed or adapted. The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in form from the first. The transformation, modification, or adaptation of the work must be substantial in order to be original and thus protected by copyright.
Common Open Content Licenses Features
Every open content license asserts the copyright of the author and affirms that without a license from the author, any person using the work would be in violation of copyright. Therefore, such licenses work within the global copyright system instead of trying to overturn it.
Open content licenses also ensure that appropriate credits should be given to the author of the work. If recipients of the work distribute it to a third party, they should ensure that the original author is acknowledged and credited. Also, when recipients modify the work, the derivative work should clearly mention the author of the original and mention where the original can be found.
Unlike most copyright licenses, which impose restrictive conditions on uses of the work, open content licenses enable users to have certain freedoms by granting them rights. Some of these rights are common to virtually all open content licenses, such as the right to copy the work and the right to distribute the work. Depending on the license, the user may also have the right to modify the work, create derivative works, perform the work, display the work, and distribute the derivative works.
Open content licenses can control derivative works. These licenses normally include the right to create a derivative work and distribute it in any media. If a person licenses a painting under an open content license, the right to base another picture on it can be granted as well. These permissions are granted on the condition that others may use the derivative work freely, just like the original work.
Therefore, an open content license normally ensures that derivative works are licensed under the terms and conditions of the same open content license. But this obligation is not applicable when the work is included in a compilation. For example, if a person makes an album of songs, one of which is licensed under an open content license, not all the songs have to be licensed under the same terms.
Another important aspect of open content licenses is the control of commercial use of a work. People can license their works under an open content license while restricting the rights to noncommercial purposes. Alternatively, people may also grant all rights, including the right to use the work commercially.
Open content licenses don’t stop people from making money from their work. If a work is under a noncommercial license, a publisher or other commercial entity may publish the work by making an agreement with the copyright holders before doing so. In other words, even after releasing a piece of work on a noncommercial basis, authors may sell the copyright to a for-profit entity, provided that there is no exclusion placed upon continuing, noncommercial usage.
Importance of Open Content Licenses
What are some of the benefits of an open content model, and why would people use an open content license to distribute their creative work rather than relying on the traditional copyright model?
Open content licenses allow works to circulate more widely than if they were restricted by default. Therefore, new artists could benefit from these licenses, as they can become more popular and recognized by more people. By relinquishing certain controls (and possibly the revenues that go along with them) content creators can be invited to more shows, obtain more sponsorships, make more collaborations, etc.
Open content licenses can be practical in the internet age, because creators can publish their works without relying on another person or institution. For example, a photographer who wants to exhibit their photos could publish them on a personal website. This way, they can establish themselves and be known to a wider public without signing up an agency or gallery to do so.
By choosing the right license, rights holders can maximize distribution and maintain control of the commercialization of their works. If people want to use a work commercially, the content creator can preserve the right to grant or withhold permission. Even if others are prohibited from commercial use, rights holders may still use their work commercially.
Besides the possibility of a much broader distribution of a work, open content licenses also increase legal certainty for users and significantly decrease legal transaction costs.
People may also use funding models that do not depend on using a noncommercial license. For example, many artists and creators use crowdfunding to fund their work before releasing it under a permissive license. Others use a model where the basic content is free, but extras such as printed versions or special access to a members-only website are for paying customers only.
Open content licenses allow people to distribute their works to anybody and on any media and format such as websites, photocopies, CDs, or books, without restrictions.
Open content licenses automatically establish a license between authors and users. Without an open content license, the sharing of works via another online source would require an individual contractual agreement between authors and users.
Trademarks and Copyrights
Trademarks, like copyright, are a type of intellectual property. But the law that protects a trademark is different from that protecting copyright. Trademarks protect brands, related words such as brand names, logos, symbols, and even sounds and colors that are used to distinguish particular goods and services from others. Any special element used to promote and distinguish businesses and the services or products sold from others can be a trademark.
The holder of a trademark is generally allowed to prevent others from using these trademarked items if the public will be confused. Trademark law helps producers of goods and services protect their reputation, and protects the public by giving them a simple way to differentiate between similar products and services.
Trademarks can be registered officially or be automatically protected under common law. This means that a trademark exists as soon as it is being used, but a common-law trademark does not offer the same legal protection as a registered trademark. That’s why many companies register their trademarks.
Copyright and trademarks can coexist. For example, Wikipedia is a registered trademark, and its logo is also protected under copyright law as an original artwork or creation.
Guided Exercises
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Can open content licenses be used to avoid copyright?
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What is considered open content?
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What is a derivative work?
Explorational Exercises
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What would you do if you want to publish a work and allow people to use it for any purposes as long as they redistribute the work under the same rights and conditions?
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Can you distribute commercial derivative works based on works published under an open content license?
Summary
In this lesson, you learned:
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Fundamentals of copyright law
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What can be considered copyrightable content
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What a derivate work or adaptation is
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Common features shared by open content licenses
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Types of open content
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Importance and benefits of the open content licensing model
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Copyright and trademarks as intellectual property types
Answers to Guided Exercises
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Can open content licenses be used to avoid copyright?
Open content licenses cannot be used to avoid copyright. Open content licenses are a type of copyright license that grant some rights under certain conditions, while maintaining the exclusive rights of the copyright holder.
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What is considered open content?
Open content can be any copyrightable work published under an open content license. This content can be movies, music, images, texts, databases, documentation, maps, and hardware designs, and other creations. These types of licenses grant rights such as use, redistribution, making derivative works, and commercial or noncommercial use without any special permission.
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What is a derivative work?
A derivative work, also called an adaptation, is a work based on an existing work in which the original work is transformed or adapted. Translations, musical arrangements, dramatizations, motion picture versions, sound recordings, and art reproductions are examples of derivative works.
Answers to Explorational Exercises
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What would you do if you want to publish a work and allow people to use it for any purposes as long as they redistribute the work under the same rights and conditions?
You can make the work available under a copyleft-type license. This way, all derivate works of the original must be open as well, requiring them to be published under the same or any other compatible license.
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Can you distribute commercial derivative works based on works published under an open content license?
It depends on the license under which the original work is available. If the license states that you can use derivative works for any purpose, even commercially, then you can.