What is Creative Commons?

Aimee M. Bissonette, author of Cyber Law:  Maximizing Safety and Minimizing Risk in the classrooms, does a wonderful job of answering this question and how it relates to the field of education.

In their efforts to reduce the risk of infringement, schools should also acquaint students teachers, and staff with Creative Commons licensing.  Creative Commons is an alternative to traditional copyright licensing.  Founded by a group of cyber law and intellectual property experts, Creative Commons provides a licensing scheme whereby copyright owners choose the terms under which they will allow use of their copyrighted works and make that choice known via the use of easily identifiable logos.

Copyright owners who are willing to share their works with others can choose from several different Creative Commons licensing levels (attribution, noncommercial, no derivatives, and share alike).  In doing so, they can offer some rights to their copyrighted works to the public without risk of giving up other rights.  Student, teachers, and staff can seek out and use copyrighted works licensed under Create Commons without fear of infringement because Creative commons allows them to know, at a glance, which works they are free to use and under what conditions.

How does Creative Commons Impact Teachers in the Classroom?

Creative Commons licensing reduces the risk of copyright infringement in the classroom because, as long as the copyright owners' Creative Commons terms are honored, there is not a need to seek permission to use a copyrighted work or to worry about whether use of the work falls within the fair use exception to the copyright law.  Users only need to contact copyright owners for permission to use certain works if their proposed use is not a permitted use under the terms of the Creative Commons license.

Copyright Authorization:

Information obtained from the book, Cyber Law: Maximizing Safety and Minimizing Risk in Classrooms, was used with written authorization from the author, Aimee M. Bissonette, J.D. obtained on October 29, 2010.  (Note to facilitators:  A PDF copy of this authorization is stored in the "Images and Files" area of this course.)

Bissonett, A. (2009). Copyright Law in the Classroom: Steering Clear of Legal Liability. In A. Bissonett, Cyber Law: Maximizing Saftety and Minimizing Risk in Classroom (pp. 59-71). Thousand Oaks: Corwin.