Creative Commons licences as a driver of open access policy: the

Australian experience

Neale Hooper 23 September 2011

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this presentation are the personal views of the presenter and should not be taken as representing the views of any Government

department or agency.

Credits: Background photo by **sasho, Tasmania 31-10-2007 3-21-23 PM, CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashodasho/1911713369/

Copyright• Copyright exists automatically in a vast range of

content and informational works:– literary (including computer programs and compilations)– dramatic– musical– artistic– films – sound recordings– broadcasts– published editions

• Copyright owner has extensive rights:– copy– publish– publicly perform– electronically communicate (eg on internet)– broadcast

Credits: Background photo by Rock Portrait Photography, Tasmania Jan 08, CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrdrck/3214272112/

Open source software/open content concepts

• Openness (access/use/reuse) has to be structured / constructed - it does not happen by default - requires copyright and other interests to be actively managed to ensure the desired level of “openness” is achieved

• For intangibles / digital materials, law provides the means of structuring openness

• Open content licensing (eg Creative Commons licences) draws on Richard Stallman’s insights into how copyright can be used to ensure that freely distributed software source code remains open to other software coders (FOSS, GNU GPL)

• Absence of legal rights means just that (nothing) – if legal rights do not exist, the only control is through lock up (secrecy) or lock down (technological locks) – counterproductive to achieving openness

Credits: Background photo by Jayegirl99, Tasmania-4200CC-BY-SA, http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieedgley/3258094114/

What is Creative Commons?

• a standardised system for licensing the use of copyright materials

• 6 standardised licences – available in plain english (summary), legalese and machine-

readable versions• Each licence grants a general permission to users to use

copyright material – that is, to copy, publish, distribute in digital form, publicly

perform– whether the whole or a substantial part of it

• on specified, standardised conditionsCredits: Background photo by Matthew Knott, Tasmania

CC-BY-NC-SA, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mknott/606575243/

Standard CC Conditions of use • Attribution (BY) – attribute the author, and no false

attribution

• Non Commercial (NC) – no “commercial use” (as defined)

• No Derivatives (ND) – no changes allowed to original work

• Share Alike (SA) – changes allowed, but new work is to be distributed under the same licence as the original work

Credits: Background photo by Rock Portrait Photography, Tasmania Jan 08,CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrdrck/3213598173/

Combined in a standardised suite of

licences

BYBY-NCBY-SA

BY-NDBY-NC-SA

BY-NC-ND

Credits: Background photo by photographerglen, Tasmania, CC-BY-NC-SA,

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photographerglen/5910399115/

CC operates as a direct licence, from copyright owner to user

So, who is using CC?

Credits: Background photo by **sasho, Tasmania 31-10-2007 3-21-23 PM, CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/sashodasho/1911713369/

“Visitors to this website agree to grant a non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free license to the rest of the world for their submissions to Whitehouse.gov under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.”

Creative Industries

Credits: Background photo by Rock Portrait Photography, Tasmania Jan 08, CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrdrck/3214297464/

ABC Pool

ABC PoolCC licensing is an option for contributors to Pool

“When you upload your work to Pool, you can choose ....to release your work under a Creative Commons licence.”

Education and research

Credits: Background photo by danishwindindustryassociation, Woolnorth, Tasmania, CC-BY-NC, http://www.flickr.com/photos/danishwindindustryassociation/4150966664/

Australian National University’s IP Policy (1 July 2010)

Part 4 - Section 14. "Open Content" Licensing by [Staff] Member14.1 …. A [Staff] Member who Creates copyright matter which is owned by the

University is granted a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive licence in respect of the copyright to grant licences to third parties over the copyright matter:

– (a) being an open content licence of the form maintained by the Creative Commons Corporation; or

– (b) being an open source licence in respect of Software, of the form maintained by the Open Software Initiative or the Free Software Foundation; or

– (c) in any other form of open content licensing determined from time to time in writing by the Vice Chancellor.

http://policies.anu.edu.au/policies/intellectual_property/policy

Credits: Background photo by Rock Portrait Photography, Tasmania Jan 08, CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrdrck/3214272112/

Research publications and data

• Australian research publications and data– QUT ePrints – eg “Open Content Licensing:

Cultivating the Creative Commons” (2007), Sydney University Press and QUT ePrints - http://eprints.qut.edu.au/6677/ - licensed under CC BY NC ND 2.5 Licence - 20,000 downloads, ranks 15th in QUT ePrints

– AIMS– Reef and Rainforest Research Centre data– AODN/IMOS

Credits: Background photo by Jayegirl99, Tasmania-4200CC-BY-SA, http://www.flickr.com/photos/julieedgley/3258094114/

Reef and Rainforest Research Centre

Government

• Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) • Geoscience Australia (GA)• Federal Budget papers – 2010, 2011• ComLaw• Australian Parliament• Emergency response report and wiki

Credits: Background photo by Matthew Knott, TasmaniaCC-BY-NC-SA, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mknott/606575243/

AUSTRALIA

AUSTRALIA

Social Media and Emergency Response

• “Disaster Management and Social Media - a case study”, Queensland Police Service (July 2011)– QPS report on their experience using Social Media in the 2011 flood and Cyclone Yasi

emergencies– licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence – See

http://www.police.qld.gov.au/Resources/Internet/services/reportsPublications/documents/QPSSocialMediaCaseStudy.pdf

• Emergency 2.0 Wiki– Licensed under CC BY NC – See http://emergency20wiki.org/

Advantages of using CC• Discoverability and retrieval of CC materials by search engines (CC machine

readable code)

• Explicit statement of re-use rights: information provided upfront to users about what they CAN do with the material

• Standard, internationally recognised icons depict the licence conditions – surmounts language barriers

• Facilitates legal re-mix and re-use of CC-licensed materials

• Identification and attribution of the creator/owner of the licensed material

• Licences are valid and enforceable by the courts• Jacobsen v Katzer (US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, 2008)• Trumpet International v Ozemail (Australian Federal Court, Heerey J, 1996)

Credits: Background photo by Rock Portrait Photography, Tasmania Jan 08,CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrdrck/3213598173/

Advantages of CC in the public sector

• mirrors the fundamental purpose for recognising copyright in government materials

• supports government’s open access policy objectives – contributes to the body of publicly funded content available for innovative reuse

• clear statement about the source of the data (attribution/provenance) – increased user confidence

• avoids financial and technical lock-up of taxpayer-funded materials

Credits: Background photo by Rock Portrait Photography, Tasmania Jan 08,CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrdrck/3213598173/

Credits: Background photo by Rock Portrait Photography, Tasmania Jan 08,CC-BY-NC-ND, http://www.flickr.com/photos/hrdrck/3214345846/

Anne Fitzgerald, Neale Hooper & Cheryl Foong: CC & Government Guide: Using Creative

Commons 3.0 Australia Licences on Government Copyright Materials

<http://eprints.qut.edu.au/38364/> <http://creativecommons.org.au/sectors/government>

For further information see:http://creativecommons.org.au

http://www.aupsi.orghttp://www.oaklaw.qut.edu.au

Credits: Background photo by murphyeppoon, Stanley, Tasmania, CC-BY-NC-SA, http://www.flickr.com/photos/29501884@N04/4542579777/