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Julie Feighery

Licensing copyrighted works

Most works are under full, “all rights reserved” copyright. This means that they cannot be reused in any way without permission from the copyright holder. One way you can get permission to use someone else’s work is through a license, a statement or contract that allows you to reuse a copyrighted work in specific circumstances. For example, the copyright holder for a popular book might sign a license to provide a movie studio with the rights to use their characters in a film.

Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons licenses are a type of copyright license that lets the creator specify the ways others can reuse their work. They were created to encourage sharing by making it easy to identify which works can be shared. These licenses help users understand what they can and can’t do when reusing someone else’s work.

6 Creative commons licenses designs with icons representing how each can be used
6 Creative commons licenses designs
Figure 5.2 Creative Commons licenses are easily recognizable by their design. Have you noticed them on any websites you’ve visited?

There are six Creative Commons licenses, each with different rules, and attaching a license to your work lets others know how they may use your material. For example, a creator can use one type of Creative Commons license to specify that others can reuse their work but not make money off of it. Alternatively, they might use a license that says users cannot modify their work in any way. Want to learn more? Explore these licenses on the Creative Commons website.

 

Popular sites like YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, and many others have used Creative Commons licenses for years. You can even search for images available under a Creative Commons license using Google Image Search.

You may have noticed under sources in this book, there are citations to a number of works with Creative Commons licenses. The creators of these works have made academic material available to freely adapt and reuse, as long as credit is given to the original authors. By citing each source a the end of each section, we are modeling the ethical use of information.

There are also some items that the IUSB librarians created themselves, and they have given those pieces a Creative Commons license so others may adapt and reuse as well.

Source

“Copyright” Adapted from Library 160: Introduction to College-Level Research Copyright © 2021 by Iowa State University Library Instruction Services is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Copyright Permissions and Creative Commons Licenses Copyright © by Julie Feighery is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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