Licensing Materials for Re-Use and Dissemination
Part of our work as educators is often some sort of content creation. As a content creator you most likely want others to be able to legally use work you've created; if so, then there are a few things you need to know about copyright and licensing.
The most important fact to know about copyright is that copyright protection is automatic on any work created after March 1, 1989. Authors do not need to register their work with the copyright office to obtain copyright protection. Authors do not need to affix a copyright notice to their work to obtain copyright protection. For any work without a copyright notice, the law treats it as "all rights reserved." Because copyright is automatic, the relevant question for authors is: How do I manage the copyrights I already have so that others can use my work in the ways that I want?
Copyright licenses give authors the legal tools to grant others permission to use their work. Affixing a license to your work will tell others explicitly and up-front how they can use those works. The ATE Program Solicitation suggests three of the Creative Commons licenses for materials produced with ATE funding. While these recommendations were written for ATE grantees, these licenses are a good fit for educational materials more generally as well.
- CC Attribution -- This license grants permission for anyone to use a work for any purpose as long as credit is given to the authors. It actually does what many people think they have done when they publish a work online without affixing a copyright notice.
- CC Attribution-ShareAlike -- This license grants permission for anyone to use a work for any purpose as long as credit is given to the original authors and any new versions of the work created by others remain under the same license. This is often referred to as Copyleft licensing.
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike -- This license grants permission for anyone to use a work for any non-commercial purpose as long as credit is given to the original authors and any new versions of the work created by others remain under the same license. Legal definitions of "commercial use" are notoriously thorny and can often have surprising consequences. The Creative Commons licenses define "commercial" as use that is "primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation."
To apply one of the above licenses to work you've created, visit the Creative Commons License Chooser, select the license you want, the follow the instructions "Mark Your Work" on the right side of the page.
Affixing one of the above licenses makes it much easier for others to use materials you've created by explicitly and clearly granting legal right to do so. It streamlines the procedure by removing the need to ask for permission. For example, if you are part of the ATE community you are required to archive the materials you've created using ATE funds with ATE Central's archiving service. As such, affixing one of these licenses alongside the NSF funding notice is a practical choice - without a license attached, anyone who wishes to legally re-use your work technically needs to ask you explicitly for permission to do so. For those outside the ATE community, there are many good reasons to affix a license – whether your aim is to share your resources with other educators through links in a newsletter, store them in an institutional archive, or contribute to an online digital library of some sort, you want others to be able to use these valuable resources in a way that aligns with your wishes.
If you're looking for CC-licensed materials that you can legally incorporate into your courses quickly and easily, hundreds of such materials can already be found in the ATE Central Archive. ATE Central's new STEMLink service provides a streamlined way to leverage these materials directly inside your Learning Management System.
For additional information about copyright, readers can turn to the US Copyright Office's Circulars. These documents are designed to provide up-to-date and authoritative information to a general audience.
