Skip to Main Content

OER Background: Creative Commons (CC) - Licensing and OER

DISCLAIMER: Material provided is only intended as a guide. This guide is not a substitute for professional legal advice.

Mixed Works and Licenses Not mobile friendly due to large picture (sorry)

Art by human and non-human artists

Why I did not license the above image with a Creative Commons License:   
On one hand,"Creators may also apply Creative Commons licenses to material they create that are adapted from public domain works, or to remixed material, databases, or collections that include work in the public domain...

...in each of these instances, the license does not affect parts of the work that are unrestricted by copyright or similar rights.
We strongly encourage you to mark the public domain material, so that others know they are also free to use this material without legal restriction." 
from https://creativecommons.org/faq/#may-i-apply-a-creative-commons-license-to-a-work-in-the-public-domain accessed 8/8/2018

On the other hand, there are copyrighted pictures in the image.  “It may not be possible to release works under one of the CC licenses if you do not control all of the necessary rights” from: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/CC_Factsheet#When_CC_tools_are_not_appropriate accessed 8/8/2018 with regards to   (c) 2018 by Katharine Schwab  quoting Mario Klingemann; @quasimondo tweet; (c) 2017 by Autodesk.

The main reason I chose not to add a Creative Common License is that I am thinking of the re-user.

While not required, Creative Commons urges creators to make sure there are no other rights that may prevent reuse of the work as intended. CC licensors do not make any warranties about reuse of the work. That means that unless the licensor is offering a separate warranty, it is incumbent on (the responsibility of) the reuser to determine whether other rights may impact their intended reuse of the work. Learning more can sometimes be as easy as contacting the licensor to inquire about these possible other rights. Read through this complete list of considerations for reusers of CC-licensed works.

  • The copyrighted images create a barrier to easy re-use of this image.
  • I conclude that mixing copyrighted material and CC Licensed material and Public Domain material is fine, but don't put a CC License declaration on it.  
  • Clearly marking the rights, licenses and state of various sources on the image looks busy, but it means that people know what is what. If I had the image separate from the list (below) of links, the two chunks of information are too easily separated.  Without the source and rights on the image, people would have to use TinEye or Google Images to try and track down the source, and the rights attached.
chat loading...

About UsContact UsFVTC Terms of ServiceSitemap
FVTC Mission, Vision, Values & Purposes FVTC Privacy StatementFVTC Library Services Accessibility Statement
DISCLAIMER: Any commercial mentions on our website are for instructional purposes only. Our guides are not a substitute for professional legal or medical advice.

Fox Valley Technical College • Library Services • 1825 N. Bluemound Drive • Room G113
Appleton, WI 54912-2277 • United States • (920) 735-5653
© 2024 • Fox Valley Technical College • All Rights Reserved.

The https://library.fvtc.edu/ pages are hosted by SpringShare. Springshare Privacy Policy.