[Oer-community] On-line education is using a flawed Creative Commons license
Seth Woodworth
seth at laptop.org
Tue Nov 27 10:35:41 MST 2012
Hello all,
There are a few problems with the non-commercial license as implemented at
Creative Commons when applied to OER, and on the other hand, there are a
few things that neither the -NC nor -SA (share-alike) license solves
completely.
Lets discuss some concrete examples instead of ideals:
Take a CC-by-sa textbook. One of the stated fears is a commercial venture
taking an open work and using it to increase their competitive advantage,
and charging for their improved version. This is a legitimate fear. So
long as a commercial company has a superior marketing advantage, they can
distribute their version of the work farther. But the share-alike license
solves _part_ of this problem. If a textbook publisher incorporates -SA
licensed material into a single work, then their product must also be
released under a CC license.
Now, one of the grey areas of open licenses, is what is a collective work
and what is separable in terms of copyright? The FSF interprets their GFDL
license to apply to collective works; if you post a page worth GFDL
licensed text to a wiki, the rest of the wiki must be in a similarly openly
licensed form. Creative Commons interprets the collective nature of
copyright differently; if a blog is licensed with a CC licensed, and a post
is published on a commercial blog, the entire blog need not be openly
licensed. (Aside: Creative Commons folk, does this sound like a
correct interpretation of the CC position to you?)
But a textbook is a clear cut case of a single copyright, if a textbook
incorporates CC-SA material, it too must be openly licensed. But there are
a number of example where this isn't the case.
A separate problem with non-commercial licenses is that it is unclear what
actions are allowed or not allowed. Can an CC-by-nc OCW video be sold on
an SD? What if that SD card is in an Android tablet? Can I post an OCW
video on my blog if my blog has ads? What if I sell a service to set up
universities with private instances of the Khan Academy software and
content for their private use? The non-commercial license _might_ restrict
my ability to sell that service of providing the Khan Academy videos (which
are licensed the same as OCW). An OCW video can not be embedded in a
Wikipedia article because of their license choice.
Overall, I think that there is a lot of misinformation and fear about what
the non-commercial clause means. And I think that there are
more legitimate uses of OER that are chilled by the use of the -NC license
than there are illegitimate uses that are stopped.
--Seth
On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 10:39 AM, rory <rory at athabascau.ca> wrote:
> Stephen,
> And furthermore . . .
> (:-)
> Rory
>
> On 12-11-27 6:08 AM, Stephen Downes wrote:
>
> Hiya all,
> Again, not to pursue the argument regarding the One True License beyond
> reason in the present forum...
> . . . .{omitted by Rory- not pertinent to this response}
>
> I have no objection to the mechanism whereby OERu converts OERs it
> receives for free from volunteers into revenues for universities. What I
> object to is the ongoing campaign by OERu staff to depict non-commercial
> OERs as 'non-free' and to lobby for their exclusion from the definition of
> 'free educational resources'. I wish to pursue my support of OERs in such a
> way that does not impose significant cost on students. To this date, the
> best and only mechanism for ensuring their use of OERs remains genuinely
> free is through the use of the NC license.
>
> RORY>>> Not true. NC does NOT prevent commercialization. It encourages it.
> Private companies want the exclusive right to distribute so they license
> it directly from the author a la Flatworld. NC promotes and supports
> commercialization. People in Canada have free access to water. Others
> bottle it and people pay for it. The fact that some companies choose to
> sell it does not make water unfree. Granny can bottle her free water and
> sell it. Others can take the free water and use it gratis.
>
>
> As an aside: there is always in this context a reference to the
> 'original' version of open source licensing, and of course Stallman's four
> freedoms. I would like to point out that open source licenses existed
> before GPL, and open content licenses existed before Creative Commons.
> Until the intervention of staff from large U.S. universities
> (Berkeley-Stanford-MIT-Harvard) these licenses required that distribution
> be unencumbered with cost. It is only with the intervention of staff from
> these institutions that 'free' comes to mean 'commercial'.
>
> RORY>>> CC-BY does not mean commercial. Nor does free water (or free air
> for that matter - yes some are selling it). This is a problem among
> educational researchers who tie themselves down to a principle. The forget
> that BOTH are possible and can exist side by side. For example because the
> OERu is pursuing one model some think that this in some way denigrates or
> restricts other models that may or may not be more open. BOTH or even ALL
> are possible.
>
>
> Again: people may attach licenses allowing commerical use to their work if
> they wish. I have no objection to this. But such people should *cease and
> desist* their ongoing campaign to have works that are non-commercial in
> intent, and free in distribution, classified as 'not free'. Content that *
> cannot* be enclosed within a paywall, and *cannot* be distributed with
> commercial encumbrances attached, is *just as free* - indeed, *more free*- than so-called 'free' commercial content.
>
> RORY>>> Or, you may attach an NC license so that you can further
> restrict the sale of your free content to one and only one company with an
> NC licence. Why does Flatworld insist on the NC licence for their content??
> I, for one, shall continue to characterise NC licensed material as
> not-free - simply because content with this restriction is NOT FREE. Water
> is free you can use if as you like or you can sell it. NC restricted
> content limits the selling option to one person.
>
>
> -- Stephen
>
>
>
>
> On 2012-11-27 4:36 AM, Wayne Mackintosh wrote:
>
> On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:44 AM, Stephen Downes <stephen at downes.ca> wrote:
>
>> The problem with this is the Flat World publications or the OERu
>> assessment scenario - content deposited with the intent that it be
>> available without cost is converted into a commercial product. It's not
>> free if you can't access it.
>
>
> Stephen, your assumption is incorrect with reference to access to
> learning materials and the OERu assessment model.
>
> The founding OERu anchors partners, as per the decisions of the
> inaugural meeting which was streamed live with back-channels for the open
> community to engage and participate in all activities agreed:
>
>
> - to conduct all planning activities of the OERu openly and
> transparently in WikiEducator and you can monitor progress from the open
> planning portal <http://wikieducator.org/OER_university/Planning> in
> the wiki where all discussions are conducted with radical transparency
> inviting contributions from all interested parties including non-OERu
> members. Furthermore there are no restrictions to anyone joining the OERu open
> planning discussion groups<http://wikieducator.org/OER_university/Planning/OERu_Communication_technologies_and_protocols>
> .
> - to develop OERu courses in WIkiEducator. To date all OER Foundation
> courses have been conducted openly in the wiki and all interested people of
> free to follow and participate in OERu courses without the requirement to
> register an account on any of the OER Foundation maintained websites.
> Moreover, the open community governance policy<http://wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:Open_Community_Governance_Policy>of the WikiEducator community states that: "
> *In collaboration with WikiEducators around the world, the governance
> structure provides the organisational framework to support the community in
> the achievement of its aims, maintaining the essential freedoms of the
> project resources, and making these available on the Internet in
> perpetuity' -- *as a matter of public policy. Given that
> WikiEducator policy requires the use of free cultural works approved
> licenses inclusive of the requirement for open and editable file formats,
> in practice this means that if ever the OER Foundation we're unable to
> sustain its activities financially, we would make the data base available
> for anyone to reuse in open and editable file formats.
>
> Stephen, your statement in the context of the OERu suggesting that "It's
> not free if you can't access it" does not hold true for the OERu
> collaboration.
>
> Wayne
>
>
> --
> Wayne Mackintosh <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg>, Ph.D.
> Director OER Foundation <http://www.oerfoundation.org>
> Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic
> Commonwealth of Learning Chair in OER, Otago Polytechnic
> Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator<http://www.wikieducator.org>
> Mobile +64 21 2436 380
> Skype: WGMNZ1
> Twitter <http://twitter.com/#%21/Mackiwg> | identi.ca<http://identi.ca/waynemackintosh>
> Wikiblog <http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg/Blog>
>
>
>
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>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Oer-community mailing listOer-community at athabascau.cahttps://deimos.cs.athabascau.ca/mailman/listinfo/oer-community
>
>
> --
> Rory McGreal
> UNESCO/COL Chair in OER
> Athabasca Universityrory at athabascau.ca
> Toll Free:1-855-807-0756
>
>
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