Open licensing and the public 
domain: Tools and policies to 
support libraries, scholars, 
and the public 
Timothy Vollmer | CopyTalk webinar | October 2, 2014
What should we talk about? 
• What’s Creative Commons and why is it 
useful? 
• What are CC licenses and how do they work? 
• What are CC public domain tools and how do 
they work? 
• Who uses CC? 
• How is CC relevant for libraries? 
• Public policy around open licenses
Nonprofit organization 
Free copyright licenses 
Founded in 2001 
Operate worldwide
Creative Commons develops, 
supports, and stewards legal 
and technical infrastructure that 
maximizes digital creativity, 
sharing, and innovation.
Flickr user: pugno_muliebriter, CC BY-NC 2.0
The problem: 
traditional copyright 
does not work well for 
sharing and free online 
collaboration.
Features of copyright today 
• It’s in the Constitution! 
• “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by 
securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the 
exclusive Right to their respective Writings and 
Discoveries.” 
• attaches when an “original work of authorship is fixed in a 
tangible medium of expression” 
• applies to published/unpublished works; you get it 
automatically (no registration or marking required) 
• in U.S., lasts for life of author + 70 years 
• “bundle of rights” = reproduce, make derivative works, 
distribute, public performance
Features of copyright today 
• You have to ask permission 
• Copyright infringement can be expensive (in U.S. 
$750-$150,000/work infringed) 
• Safety valves on exclusive rights of authors = 
exceptions and limitations to copyright 
• Fair use 
• Federal government works not protected 
• Libraries, classroom teaching exception
Features of copyright today 
• Public domain = not protected by copyright 
• Copyright = “all rights reserved”; Public domain 
= “no rights reserved” 
• Don’t have to ask permission! 
• in U.S., stuff that was published before 1923 
• Facts not protected 
• copyrighted works rise into the public domain 
after copyright term expires or when author 
puts it there beforehand
FAST 
FWD
With the web, 
It’s so damn easy to share
But how to ask 
permission?
How to support those that 
just want to share?
CC’s solution: A simple, 
standardized, legally 
robust way to grant 
copyright permissions to 
creative works (and data).
“Lowers transaction costs”
CC’s legal infrastructure: 
(1) Copyright Licenses 
(2)Public Domain Tools
(1) CC Copyright Licenses
CC licenses build on 
traditional copyright 
• CC works within the existing system by allowing 
movement from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some 
Rights Reserved” 
• CC improves copyright by giving creators a 
choice about which freedoms to grant and which 
rights to keep 
• CC minimizes transaction costs by granting the 
public certain permissions beforehand.
License Building Blocks 
All CC licenses are 
combinations of 4 
elements: 
Attribution" 
ShareAlike" 
NonCommercial" 
NoDerivatives"
Public Domain Dedication 
Licenses
Creative Commons License Chooser: 
http://creativecommons.org/choose/
Anatomy of a CC License:
" 
!
Important License Attributes 
• All are non-exclusive, irrevocable public licenses 
• All require attribution 
• All permit reuse for at least noncommercial 
purposes in unmodified form 
• Do not contract away any user rights (exceptions/ 
limitations like fair use) 
• CC licensor enters into a separate license 
agreement with each user
Important License Attributes 
• License runs with the work, recipient may not 
apply technological measures or conditions that 
limit another recipients rights under the license, 
e.g. no DRM 
• No warranties 
• License terminates immediately upon breach 
• CC is not a party to the license
(2) Public Domain Tools
CC0 Public Domain Dedication 
(read “CC Zero”) 
Universal waiver, permanently surrenders 
copyright and related rights, placing the work 
as nearly as possible into the public domain 
worldwide
CC Public Domain Mark 
Not legally operative, but a label to be used by 
those with knowledge of a work already in the 
public domain 
Only intended for use with works in the 
worldwide public domain
75 jurisdictions
500M – 1B works
Version 4.0
Sui Generis Database Rights 
• now licensed alongside copyright; doesn’t apply where they 
don’t exist 
Common-sense attribution 
• URI shortcut possible 
30-day window to correct license violations 
• rights reinstated if fixed within 30 days of discovery 
More global/better readability 
• end porting now! 
Operation of Share-Alike 
• downstream adaptations can come under later version of SA 
license 
Clarity about ND 
• extract and reuse under ND licenses, but no sharing
Who uses 
Creative Commons?
Wikipedia: Over 77,000 contributors 
working on over 22 million articles in 285 
languages; 23 million files on Commons
Open Educational Resources
What about 
libraries?
1) CC0 for library metadata 
2) Tag resources with rights info 
3) Open license for library owned content 
4) Open policy for university research 
5) Copyright education/advocacy
1) CC0 for library metadata 
2) Tag resources with rights info 
3) Open license for library owned content 
4) Open policy for university research 
5) Copyright education/advocacy
Europeana: 30M metadata items under 
CC0, 5 million digital object with PDM 
and 2.8 million digital objects under one 
of the CC licenses
55
56
57
59
60
1) CC0 for library metadata 
2) Tag resources with rights info 
3) Open license for library owned content 
4) Open policy for university research 
5) Copyright education/advocacy
62
Filter by usage rights 
Free Access - Rig... (3042) 
Restricted Access... (866) 
CC BY-NC-SA (308) 
Public Domain marked (188) 
Unknown copyright... (144) 
Paid Access - Rig... (83) 
CC BY-NC (115) 
CC BY (58) 
CC BY-NC-ND (40) 
CC BY-SA (15) 
CC0 (1)
65
66
1) CC0 for library metadata 
2) Tag resources with rights info 
3) Open license for library owned content 
4) Open policy for university research 
5) Copyright education/advocacy
68
69
1) CC0 for library metadata 
2) Tag resources with rights info 
3) Open license for library owned content 
4) Open policy for university research 
5) Copyright education/advocacy
71
1) CC0 for library metadata 
2) Tag resources with rights info 
3) Open license for library owned content 
4) Open policy for university research 
5) Copyright education/advocacy
An aside of 
increasing importance: 
Text and data 
mining
“The computer-based process of 
deriving or organizing information 
from text or data. It works by 
copying large quantities of material, 
extracting the data, and 
recombining it to identify 
patterns, trends and hypotheses or 
by providing the means to organize 
the information mined.” 
Text Mining and Data Analytics in Call for Evidence Responses. UK Government. 
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-doc-t.pdf
“new” technique, 
new revenue 
opportunity for 
publishers
Carroll: “even content under a [BY-NC 
license] can be freely mined for 
commercial purposes because the 
license applies only to uses 
covered by copyright, and 
copyright does not regulate text 
mining—at least in the United 
States.”
Public policy
OPEN POLICY: 
Publicly funded resources are 
openly licensed resources
AusGOAL 
Australian Digital Alliance 
BCcampus 
Centrum Cyfrowe 
Cetis 
Commonwealth of Learning 
Connexions 
Creative Commons 
Creative Commons United States 
Curriki 
EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) 
Foundation for Excellence in Education 
Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU 
Fundación Karisma 
Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP) 
iNACOL 
ISKME 
Lumen Learning 
Kennisland 
National Copyright Unit, Australia 
New Media Consortium 
New Media Rights 
OER Foundation 
Open Access Button 
Open Coalition 
Open Coalition 
Open Education Consortium 
Open Knowledge Foundation 
Open Textbook Library, University of Minnesota 
Open University of Tanzania 
rSmart 
Reme Melero, Consejo Superior de investigaciones 
Cientificas (CSIC) Spanish National Research 
Council 
Renata Aquino 
Saylor Academy 
SPARC 
Textbook Equity 
UNESCO Knowledge Societies Division 
U.S. Student PIRGs 
Wide World Ed 
Wiki Strategies
Questions?
Thank you very much! 
tvol@creativecommons.org

Creative Commons CopyTalk webinar October 2, 2014

  • 1.
    Open licensing andthe public domain: Tools and policies to support libraries, scholars, and the public Timothy Vollmer | CopyTalk webinar | October 2, 2014
  • 2.
    What should wetalk about? • What’s Creative Commons and why is it useful? • What are CC licenses and how do they work? • What are CC public domain tools and how do they work? • Who uses CC? • How is CC relevant for libraries? • Public policy around open licenses
  • 4.
    Nonprofit organization Freecopyright licenses Founded in 2001 Operate worldwide
  • 5.
    Creative Commons develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation.
  • 6.
  • 7.
    The problem: traditionalcopyright does not work well for sharing and free online collaboration.
  • 8.
    Features of copyrighttoday • It’s in the Constitution! • “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” • attaches when an “original work of authorship is fixed in a tangible medium of expression” • applies to published/unpublished works; you get it automatically (no registration or marking required) • in U.S., lasts for life of author + 70 years • “bundle of rights” = reproduce, make derivative works, distribute, public performance
  • 9.
    Features of copyrighttoday • You have to ask permission • Copyright infringement can be expensive (in U.S. $750-$150,000/work infringed) • Safety valves on exclusive rights of authors = exceptions and limitations to copyright • Fair use • Federal government works not protected • Libraries, classroom teaching exception
  • 10.
    Features of copyrighttoday • Public domain = not protected by copyright • Copyright = “all rights reserved”; Public domain = “no rights reserved” • Don’t have to ask permission! • in U.S., stuff that was published before 1923 • Facts not protected • copyrighted works rise into the public domain after copyright term expires or when author puts it there beforehand
  • 11.
  • 12.
    With the web, It’s so damn easy to share
  • 13.
    But how toask permission?
  • 14.
    How to supportthose that just want to share?
  • 15.
    CC’s solution: Asimple, standardized, legally robust way to grant copyright permissions to creative works (and data).
  • 16.
  • 18.
    CC’s legal infrastructure: (1) Copyright Licenses (2)Public Domain Tools
  • 19.
  • 20.
    CC licenses buildon traditional copyright • CC works within the existing system by allowing movement from “All Rights Reserved” to “Some Rights Reserved” • CC improves copyright by giving creators a choice about which freedoms to grant and which rights to keep • CC minimizes transaction costs by granting the public certain permissions beforehand.
  • 21.
    License Building Blocks All CC licenses are combinations of 4 elements: Attribution" ShareAlike" NonCommercial" NoDerivatives"
  • 23.
  • 24.
    Creative Commons LicenseChooser: http://creativecommons.org/choose/
  • 25.
    Anatomy of aCC License:
  • 27.
  • 32.
    Important License Attributes • All are non-exclusive, irrevocable public licenses • All require attribution • All permit reuse for at least noncommercial purposes in unmodified form • Do not contract away any user rights (exceptions/ limitations like fair use) • CC licensor enters into a separate license agreement with each user
  • 33.
    Important License Attributes • License runs with the work, recipient may not apply technological measures or conditions that limit another recipients rights under the license, e.g. no DRM • No warranties • License terminates immediately upon breach • CC is not a party to the license
  • 34.
  • 35.
    CC0 Public DomainDedication (read “CC Zero”) Universal waiver, permanently surrenders copyright and related rights, placing the work as nearly as possible into the public domain worldwide
  • 37.
    CC Public DomainMark Not legally operative, but a label to be used by those with knowledge of a work already in the public domain Only intended for use with works in the worldwide public domain
  • 39.
  • 40.
  • 41.
  • 42.
    Sui Generis DatabaseRights • now licensed alongside copyright; doesn’t apply where they don’t exist Common-sense attribution • URI shortcut possible 30-day window to correct license violations • rights reinstated if fixed within 30 days of discovery More global/better readability • end porting now! Operation of Share-Alike • downstream adaptations can come under later version of SA license Clarity about ND • extract and reuse under ND licenses, but no sharing
  • 43.
  • 44.
    Wikipedia: Over 77,000contributors working on over 22 million articles in 285 languages; 23 million files on Commons
  • 45.
  • 51.
  • 52.
    1) CC0 forlibrary metadata 2) Tag resources with rights info 3) Open license for library owned content 4) Open policy for university research 5) Copyright education/advocacy
  • 53.
    1) CC0 forlibrary metadata 2) Tag resources with rights info 3) Open license for library owned content 4) Open policy for university research 5) Copyright education/advocacy
  • 54.
    Europeana: 30M metadataitems under CC0, 5 million digital object with PDM and 2.8 million digital objects under one of the CC licenses
  • 55.
  • 56.
  • 57.
  • 59.
  • 60.
  • 61.
    1) CC0 forlibrary metadata 2) Tag resources with rights info 3) Open license for library owned content 4) Open policy for university research 5) Copyright education/advocacy
  • 62.
  • 63.
    Filter by usagerights Free Access - Rig... (3042) Restricted Access... (866) CC BY-NC-SA (308) Public Domain marked (188) Unknown copyright... (144) Paid Access - Rig... (83) CC BY-NC (115) CC BY (58) CC BY-NC-ND (40) CC BY-SA (15) CC0 (1)
  • 65.
  • 66.
  • 67.
    1) CC0 forlibrary metadata 2) Tag resources with rights info 3) Open license for library owned content 4) Open policy for university research 5) Copyright education/advocacy
  • 68.
  • 69.
  • 70.
    1) CC0 forlibrary metadata 2) Tag resources with rights info 3) Open license for library owned content 4) Open policy for university research 5) Copyright education/advocacy
  • 71.
  • 75.
    1) CC0 forlibrary metadata 2) Tag resources with rights info 3) Open license for library owned content 4) Open policy for university research 5) Copyright education/advocacy
  • 81.
    An aside of increasing importance: Text and data mining
  • 82.
    “The computer-based processof deriving or organizing information from text or data. It works by copying large quantities of material, extracting the data, and recombining it to identify patterns, trends and hypotheses or by providing the means to organize the information mined.” Text Mining and Data Analytics in Call for Evidence Responses. UK Government. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview-doc-t.pdf
  • 83.
    “new” technique, newrevenue opportunity for publishers
  • 86.
    Carroll: “even contentunder a [BY-NC license] can be freely mined for commercial purposes because the license applies only to uses covered by copyright, and copyright does not regulate text mining—at least in the United States.”
  • 91.
  • 95.
    OPEN POLICY: Publiclyfunded resources are openly licensed resources
  • 97.
    AusGOAL Australian DigitalAlliance BCcampus Centrum Cyfrowe Cetis Commonwealth of Learning Connexions Creative Commons Creative Commons United States Curriki EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) Foundation for Excellence in Education Free Knowledge Advocacy Group EU Fundación Karisma Harvard Open Access Project (HOAP) iNACOL ISKME Lumen Learning Kennisland National Copyright Unit, Australia New Media Consortium New Media Rights OER Foundation Open Access Button Open Coalition Open Coalition Open Education Consortium Open Knowledge Foundation Open Textbook Library, University of Minnesota Open University of Tanzania rSmart Reme Melero, Consejo Superior de investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) Spanish National Research Council Renata Aquino Saylor Academy SPARC Textbook Equity UNESCO Knowledge Societies Division U.S. Student PIRGs Wide World Ed Wiki Strategies
  • 98.
  • 99.
    Thank you verymuch! tvol@creativecommons.org

Editor's Notes

  • #2 So hello everyone! Thanks for having me today. I’m here to talk to you about Creative Commons and the free legal tools that we offer, especially for librarians – and how CC tools can be a librarian’s best friend when it comes to explaining things like copyright, pointing the community, especially educators and students, to free academic and educational resources, and how to use and attribute these resources. First, I’d love a show of hands – maybe in the chat – for how many of your familiar with Creative Commons? Abstract: Creative Commons are a librarian's best friend when it comes to explaining copyright, pointing others to free academic and educational resources, and highlighting reuse and attribution best practices. Learn about Creative Commons -- the organization and its mission; its copyright licenses; its public domain tools, especially CC0 (read CC Zero); how to discover, find and attribute CC-licensed content; and how to license your own content with a CC license. We will also go over a few of the major organizations and institutions who have adopted CC licensing.
  • #7 When people are aware of copyright, it doesn’t really make their life easier either. Under default copyright law, trying to figure out what you can do with a resource can be confusing, restrictive, and time-consuming. You usually have to get your lawyers talking to other lawyers in order to clear permissions to use or share a resource, and those contracts are usually worked out every single time you do so. And it’s not always clear if you can share it under the same terms again in the future. Usually there’s a time limit to the contracts that you work out with other institutions or companies, for example if you are leasing etextbooks owned by publishers.
  • #29 This is HTML code that has embedded metadata about the work (who it’s authored by, CC license status, etc.). This code is pastable into any web page.
  • #30 Here’s a preview of that tool. You can play with it right now by going to http://creativecommons.org/choose while I talk – I’ll paste the url into the chat. There you go. This is the tool that you can use to add the CC license to your own website or blog. Or point your patrons to who want to license their own works.
  • #31 If you play around with it, you’ll see that there are different options for marking both materials on your website and offline documents. And optional fields that you can fill in on the bottom left.
  • #41 we can track more than 500 million cc licensed objects on the internet.
  • #42 we can track more than 500 million cc licensed objects on the internet.
  • #44 we can track more than 500 million cc licensed objects on the internet.
  • #49 we can track more than 500 million cc licensed objects on the internet.
  • #50 we can track more than 500 million cc licensed objects on the internet.
  • #51 we can track more than 500 million cc licensed objects on the internet.
  • #53 So libraries are using CC tools in a variety of ways. I’d say there are four main ways, and each of these ways are great for you to consider for your own library. The first is using the CC0 public domain waiver for library metadata. So metadata means information about a resource, such as author, origin, etc. – basically all the stuff that the library is used to cataloging. There’s so much information about information, and it doesn’t make sense for this metainformation to be under copyright, or even a CC license, because it’s descriptive data.
  • #54 So libraries are using CC tools in a variety of ways. I’d say there are four main ways, and each of these ways are great for you to consider for your own library. The first is using the CC0 public domain waiver for library metadata. So metadata means information about a resource, such as author, origin, etc. – basically all the stuff that the library is used to cataloging. There’s so much information about information, and it doesn’t make sense for this metainformation to be under copyright, or even a CC license, because it’s descriptive data.
  • #57 This is their terms page, and you can see that they have dedicated all their metadata to the public domain and offered it for download through their API.
  • #58 Another institution that has done this is Harvard – all their library catalog records are available in the public domain under the CC0 dedication. Others include the University of Michigan Library, University of Florida Library – and various other libraries around the world. ---- Open Library, An initiative of the Internet Archive, the Open Library is an online catalog that aims to provide a web page for every book ever published. Drawing from existing library catalogs around the world and user contributions, the Open Library has 20 million records to date and provides access to 1.7 million scanned books. All rights to Open Library data are surrendered via CC0.
  • #59 Including New York’s very own public library. NYPL actually uses CC in two different ways,
  • #60 The first way is how I just mentioned – using CC0 for its bibliographic metadata.
  • #61 The second way is for photos that they have taken of old maps in public domain. They have made available these photos under the CC0 dedication.
  • #62 So libraries are using CC tools in a variety of ways. I’d say there are four main ways, and each of these ways are great for you to consider for your own library. The first is using the CC0 public domain waiver for library metadata. So metadata means information about a resource, such as author, origin, etc. – basically all the stuff that the library is used to cataloging. There’s so much information about information, and it doesn’t make sense for this metainformation to be under copyright, or even a CC license, because it’s descriptive data.
  • #66 So many libraries are releasing this object metatada into the public domain using the CC0 tool. The Digital Public Library of America is one organization that is doing this - they have a CC0 policy for their metadata.
  • #68 So libraries are using CC tools in a variety of ways. I’d say there are four main ways, and each of these ways are great for you to consider for your own library. The first is using the CC0 public domain waiver for library metadata. So metadata means information about a resource, such as author, origin, etc. – basically all the stuff that the library is used to cataloging. There’s so much information about information, and it doesn’t make sense for this metainformation to be under copyright, or even a CC license, because it’s descriptive data.
  • #69 So here’s an example of a county library doing that. Hood River County Library District in Oregon chose to make CC BY the default license for District-produced content. It believes that, as a publicly-funded institution, CC is the best way to encourage use, reuse, and sharing of the content it creates.
  • #70 University of California Santa Cruz is another example of a library who has licensed its own content under CC BY. And there are many others who have done this, including the ones I mentioned previously like University of Michigan Library.
  • #71 So libraries are using CC tools in a variety of ways. I’d say there are four main ways, and each of these ways are great for you to consider for your own library. The first is using the CC0 public domain waiver for library metadata. So metadata means information about a resource, such as author, origin, etc. – basically all the stuff that the library is used to cataloging. There’s so much information about information, and it doesn’t make sense for this metainformation to be under copyright, or even a CC license, because it’s descriptive data.
  • #72 This website keeps track of the number of institutions who have open access repositories. You can see that the number of institutions is growing every year.
  • #76 So libraries are using CC tools in a variety of ways. I’d say there are four main ways, and each of these ways are great for you to consider for your own library. The first is using the CC0 public domain waiver for library metadata. So metadata means information about a resource, such as author, origin, etc. – basically all the stuff that the library is used to cataloging. There’s so much information about information, and it doesn’t make sense for this metainformation to be under copyright, or even a CC license, because it’s descriptive data.