Open Content Licensing

Open content licensing is an alternative to traditional copyright licensing. In contrast to copyright, which restricts the use and distribution of content for the benefit of the copyright holder, open content licensing has been devised to make original content freely and more widely available to the general public. This entry first discusses the technological changes that led to open content licensing, the rationale for open content licensing, and examples of open content licenses. It then discusses the implications of open content licensing for education.

Educational institutions, government entities, and for-profit and nonprofit organizations have historically limited the public availability of content through means such as secure websites, proprietary databases, intranets, and learning/course management systems—each of which requires access codes and passwords available only to selected users. The secured content is unavailable to those without the proper memberships or funds. Although copyright does not necessarily prevent content from being accessed, it does provide its own form of content security by restricting what can and cannot be done with content. Copying a book, sampling a song, recording portions of a movie or accessing software source code are actions that typically can be performed only after obtaining permission from the copyright owner.

[Page 552]The advent and ubiquity of the Internet has changed the way that text, images, animation, audio, and video are delivered and accessed. People around the world can freely and easily receive content via a universal interface. Content for the Internet can also be created by users and shared to the world through video-sharing sites (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr), social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), blogs, personal websites, and a myriad of other content sites. Copying an entire large printed book using a copy machine can be a long and laborious process, but users can copy and reproduce digital content that is identical in quality to the original. In addition, digitized content can be modified, added to, or edited.

Open content licensing capitalizes on the capabilities afforded by the Internet by providing a legal structure for the delivery and use of content by the general public that differs from traditional copyright. Technology makes content more easily and widely available and accessible from a usability perspective, and open content licensing makes content more easily and widely available and accessible from a legal perspective.