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Authoring & Adoption: Copyright & Licensing: Home

Overview

Copyright & Licensing
An informed understanding of copyright and licensing is necessary for adopting and authoring open educational resources (OER) and leveraging library collections as course materials. Creative Commons (CC) licenses facilitate sharing and reusing content but require careful understanding to avoid common pitfalls, such as improper attribution or incompatible license choices. Supporting faculty in this area includes training on selecting appropriate CC licenses, addressing misconceptions about copyright, and managing resources through library-supported systems like course reserves and reading list platforms. Good compliance processes and practices are part of the foundation for providing access to more affordable and open course materials.

Copyright & Licensing Topics

Creative Commons licenses are a widely-used system for sharing creative works freely and legally within the current legal system of copyright. Creative Commons licenses empower creators to decide how others can use their work, enabling open access to educational materials while also retaining their copyright. The nuts and bolts of Creative Commons licenses are treated extensively and authoritatively elsewhere and won't be repeated here:

Preparation

Here are some things you can do to be prepared to support Creative Commons licensing activities at your institution:

  • Host CC workshops that go beyond the basics, focusing on practical applications such as licensing their syllabi and lecture slides, or adapting existing CC-licensed works.
  • Develop resource guides tailored to institutional practices, with examples of CC-licensed resources leveraged for teaching.
  • Ensure systems like the LMS or library catalog can display and track CC licenses and metadata for uploaded materials. See the CC Platform Toolkit
  • Offer easy-to-use CC licensing templates or flow-charts for various formats (e.g., text, slides, images, multimedia).
  • Work with tech teams to integrate CC licensing into commonly used tools, like institutional publishing platforms or digital repositories.
  • Partner with faculty development centers, IT, and legal counsel to streamline the use of CC licenses across departments.
  • Establish a point of contact for faculty needing assistance with choosing or applying CC licenses.
  • Review how CC licenses are being applied and provide feedback to improve practices.
  • Advocate for an institutional OER policy, making sure the policy aligns with faculty intellectual property rights and academic freedom. See the MNOP page on policy development for more ideas.
  • If there is an appetite for it at your institution, standardize copyright practices by creating institutional guidelines for using CC licenses, including which licenses are recommended for various use cases (e.g., teaching materials, multimedia, library-published textbooks).

A well-intentioned project can lose momentum, completely breakdown, or end up unusable if the following open licensing and copyright mistakes are not understood and avoided from the outset.  Misuse of images and media can result in painful and costly lawsuits. Some projects may use an author's existing work, like lectures or slides, as the basis to build a larger open work, in which case a retrospective review should be conducted before any work on a new open work commences. If in doubt, consider using only materials with more permissive licenses, such as CC BY or CC BY-SA.

List of Common Mistakes

  1. Misunderstanding License Compatibility
  2. Inadequate Attribution
  3. Choosing an Inappropriate License for the New Work
  4. Failing to Provide Licensing Information and Metadata
  5. Using Images or Media without Confirming License Terms
  6. Using Commercial Stock Images or Media in Non-Commercial Licensed OER
  7. Not Checking License Versions

Brief Summaries of Common Mistakes

1. Misunderstanding License Compatibility
Not all Creative Commons licenses are compatible with each other. For example, resources under a "No Derivatives" (ND) license cannot be adapted, and "Non-Commercial" (NC) licenses can't be combined with licenses allowing commercial use. Trying to mix incompatible licenses leads to legal issues. Before combining resources, review the licenses carefully. Tools like the Creative Commons License Chooser and license compatibility charts can help confirm if licenses are compatible.

2. Inadequate Attribution
Proper attribution is essential for all CC-licensed materials, but many creators skip important details, such as the original author’s name, title of the work, license type, or link to the license. This can be a legal issue and fails to respect the original creator’s work. Follow the TASL (Title, Author, Source, License) format for attributions. Many OER platforms, like OER Commons, offer attribution tools or prompts to ensure this information is included.

3. Choosing an Inappropriate License for the New Work
Sometimes, creators add their own CC license to a newly created OER without considering the licenses of the source materials. This can lead to conflicts, especially if original resources were more restrictive than the selected license. If the source materials have a ShareAlike (SA) requirement, your derivative must also carry an SA license. Ensure your final license is as, or more, restrictive than the most restrictive source material license.

4. Failing to Provide Licensing Information and Metadata
Proper metadata, including license information, should be added to the new OER to help future users understand their rights. Neglecting this can lead to confusion and limit how others reuse the resource. Clearly label the license, author information, and any specific usage terms on your final resource. Many OER platforms provide fields for this information, which should be filled out fully.

5. Using Images or Media without Confirming License Terms
Many mistakenly assume all media on open platforms are free to use in any OER context. However, some images or media, even on sites like Wikimedia Commons, may have restrictions or require specific attribution. Always verify the license of each media element and check for additional usage restrictions. Some platforms, like Flickr or Wikimedia Commons, allow filtering by license type to ensure proper usage.

6. Using Commercial Stock Images or Media in Non-Commercial Licensed OER
Commercially licensed images or media can't legally be incorporated into OER licensed as “Non-Commercial” (NC). Adding such content to NC OER is a common licensing error. Ensure that any media added to an NC OER is also available under a compatible non-commercial license or, ideally, under a CC license.

7. Not Checking License Versions
Different versions of Creative Commons licenses (e.g., CC BY 3.0 vs. CC BY 4.0) may have slight variations, particularly in terms of international applicability and interpretation. When possible, use the most recent version of a license to avoid any issues, but ensure compatibility with any older licenses if reusing legacy materials.

Copyright & Fair Use

Copyright and fair use in a library's reading list management system would cover a small number of situations, mainly when physical materials where the library owns a legal copy are physically copied or hosted in an electronic reserves system. See the Copyright & Fair Use topic in MNOP's Program Management area for discussion of fair use in libraries' course materials efforts.

Licensing

The lion's share of compliance in reading list management work regards a library's electronic resources, which are all governed by terms agreed on in licenses. Copyright and fair use do not govern electronic resources.

Publishing these license terms, most likely through the integrated library system and the library's public catalog or discovery display, is a very large project for any library. But it is the best way to make license terms available to instructors and others helping to design and deliver courses. Reading list management software also makes it possible for libraries to help manage how their licensed electronic resources are used, and ensure it is in compliance with license terms from a large and diverse number of vendors.

For an introduction to licensing library materials for course materials, see the presentation in the clearinghouse below.   

New Research on Copyright & Licensing