FYI by Fouad Bajwa

A guide to open licensing

By: http://www.opendefinition.org/guide

Please note
This guide has been produced by individuals who are not lawyers. Nothing in
this page should be considered as legal advice.

Contents

1. A guide to open licensing
. What is an open license?
. Why use an open license?
. How can I apply an open license?
. Further information

What is an open license?
A license is a document that specifies what can and cannot be done with a
work (whether sound, text, image or multimedia). It grants permissions and
states restrictions. Broadly speaking, an open license is one which grants
permission to access, re-use and redistribute a work with few or no
restrictions. (A full set of conditions which must be met in order for a
license to be open is available in the Open Knowledge Definition 1.0.
http://www.opendefinition.org/1.0)

For example, a piece of writing on a website made available under an open
license would be free for anyone to:

- print out and share,
- publish on another website or in print,
- make alterations or additions,
- incorporate, in part or in whole, into another piece of writing,
- use as the basis for a work in another medium - such as an audio recording
or a film, and do many other things ... Openly licensed works are hence free
to be shared, improved and built upon!

The exact permissions granted depend on the full text of the open license
that is applied. Different projects may require slightly different sets of
permissions, or restrictions - and there are a range of different licenses
available to cater to these different purposes. Some open licenses stipulate
that the work may be freely re-used or re-distributed as long as the
original author is appropriately credited. Some licenses state that any
derivative works - or works that incorporate all or parts of the original
work - are made available under the same license as the original work.

For a list of the most common open licenses, see the Open Knowledge Licenses
page. http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses

Why use an open license?
Works that are published without an explicit license are usually subject to
the copyright laws of the jurisdiction they are published in by default.
These laws typically give several exclusive rights to the copyright holder -
including the right to produce copies, and to produce derivative works.
These rights prohibit unauthorised re-distribution and re-use by third
parties - and can remain in effect until the date of death of the author
plus 70 years. While the protections offered by copyright laws are
appropriate in many circumstances, there are also circumstances in which
these protections may be unnecessarily restrictive.

Open licenses enable creators to allow more freedom in what others can do
with their works. Benefits of this freedom include:

. allowing others to circulate the work freely - potentially giving it a
greater circulation than if a single group or individual retained an
exclusive right to distribute;
. not forcing users to apply for permission every time they wish to
circulate a copy of the work in question - which can be a time consuming
affair, especially if the work has many authors;
. encouraging others to continuously improve and add value to a work;
. encouraging others to create new works based on or derived from the
original work - e.g. translations, adaptations, or works with a different
scope or focus.

How can I apply an open license?
Applying an open license to a work can be very straightforward. The
procedure may slightly vary depending on which license is selected, but
should be more or less as follows:

. Get permission from all copyright holders to openly license the work.
. Decide which open license best suits your purposes.
. Display a notice somewhere prominent on your work stating that your work
is made available under the open license you have chosen. Include a copy of,
or a link to, the full text of your chosen license in your work.

More detailed instructions on how to apply specific licenses are available
on the licenses page. http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses


Further information
For further information about open licensing for data, see our Guide to Open
Data Licensing. http://www.okfn.org/wiki/OpenDataLicensing

For further information about specific open licenses, please see their
respective websites. These are listed on the Open Knowledge licenses page.
http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses

The following is a list of articles and posts about open licenses and open
licensing:

A Guide to Open Content Licenses, Lawrence Liang, December 2004. This is an
excellent listing, summary and analysis of current open content licenses.
http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/research/lliang/open_content_guide/

Learning the lesson: open content licensing, Glyn Moody, August 2006. A good
history of open content licenses. http://lwn.net/Articles/181374/

Definition of Free Cultural Works licenses page. A grid comparing
permissions and restrictions of different open licenses.
http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses

The Wikimedia Commons - Choosing a license page gives a good breakdown of
common license conditions.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Choosing_a_license