[music playing]

Speaker: OTAN-- Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Diana Vera-alba: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here on a Friday afternoon. I really appreciate that. Today, I'm going to talk about Creative Commons licenses, public domain, and copyright. My name is Diana Vera-Alba. I am an OTAN subject matter expert. I'm also a faculty, ESL faculty, and OER coordinator at San Diego College of Continuing Education in San Diego.

So a little bit about myself. I am an online instructor and trainer. I've been doing this since 2012. I've taught in the modalities of distance ed, hybrid, hyflex, and fully online courses.

I'm a trainer, online faculty mentor at my district, as well as an OER and CAEP coordinator. I'm also a Canvas course design trainer, accessibility trainer, OER/ZTC trainer, and here also with OTAN as a subject matter expert. So in my free time, I do enjoy gardening, photography, and I love animals. So this is Gaudi, one of my dogs.

Before we get started, I do want to find out how familiar you are with using OERs. So if you can please type in chat, type number 1 if you are not familiar with OERs, type number 2 if you are somewhat familiar with OERs, and type number 3 if you are very familiar with OERs.

So this will help me keep the pace of your interests so I can see where you are at right now in your learning. OK, wonderful. So we have a lot of 1's. We have some 2's and 2.5's. That's great.

So hopefully this will be beneficial for you, not super overwhelming. I will try to keep it as simple as possible because it is a very complex topic. So throughout the presentation, I'll have lots of examples, including videos. And so let's go ahead and get started with that.

And before we actually get started, I do want to preface this presentation because we are going to talk about-- or I'm going to present on some legal topics. I am not an attorney and I cannot give you legal advice, but I am Creative Commons certified. So I have that linked out if you're interested in what that means.

I'll tell you a little bit. Creative Commons are a set of licenses, six OER Creative Commons licenses that designate materials as OER. So I am certified with Creative Commons, and copyright public domain fair use and the licenses were part of my training. But again, I am not an attorney.

All right, so let's go ahead and continue. So today, the agenda topics we're going to look at are the characteristics of OERs. We're going to look at the 5 R's that define an OER. We're going to look at the types of Creative Commons licenses.

We're also going to look at the differences between OERs and open research, free resources, what is copyright, public domain versus open resources, and then we're going to identify some OERs.

We're going to look at the licenses. And when you are doing your own search online, one of the best places to look at if you don't see the license clearly on the home page of the website is looking at the terms of use, OK?

And I have a couple self-care time throughout the presentation. And when we get there, you'll see the screen. I'll stop and pause for a moment to see if you do want to take a break. And if you want to power through, we'll power through. But I do have those two breaks available for you. Again, this is an hour and 30 minute presentation. But there is a lot of material to cover, OK?

All right, so first of all, let's look at the definition of what an OER is. So OER stands for open educational resources. And these are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits sharing, accessing, repurposing, including for commercial purposes and collaborating with others, OK?

So notice there is some emphasis on some of these phrases. So the first one is reside in the public domain. So these are materials that are typically in a website. They can be in a repository like a large library of OERs. MERLOT is one of them. You might have heard of MERLOT or OER Commons. So they reside in the public domain. So somewhere where we can all access.

They're also licensed under an intellectual property license. So that is the Creative Commons licenses that I mentioned earlier, and I'll go over those with you as well. And these licenses permit sharing, this is really important, accessing, right? We need to be able to access those resources for them to be open.

We may need to be able to repurpose those materials as well. So I need to be able to share them with my students, maybe share them with colleagues, and collaborate with others, right?

So right now I'm in a project where I am collaborating with my fellow faculty on an OER resource and we are actually revising and rewriting some portions of that resource. So I should be able to have access, repurpose, and the right to share and collaborate with others, OK?

Now, this definition is from the US Office of Education from their 2010 plan. In their 2020 plan, this definition was not included because it was assumed that everyone knew what OERs are. So I am reincluding that definition because many of us still are-- we've heard of them, but we're not quite sure what they are, OK?

Anthony Burik: Diana?

Diana Vera-alba: Yes.

Anthony Burik: So can we go back to the definition for a second. Austin had a couple of questions on the repurpose. So question, repurpose how. And then the second question, is the repurposing strictly defined or completely open?

Diana Vera-alba: If it's an open resource, then it's completely open. So repurposing can mean sharing as is or, as in my case, with my grantees that we are rewriting or remixing that original resource.

So I'm repurposing it to match my student population because we liked this resource, but there were things about it that just didn't fit. And so we are repurposing, we are remixing, and we are revising that resource. Does that make sense?

Anthony Burik: I think we're good, Diana. Yeah--

Diana Vera-alba: OK, all right. So we're going to look at this a little bit more. We're going to look at this definition with some examples. So when we talk about OERs, we need to discuss the five R's because repurpose, reuse, revise, remix, redistribute, and retain, those are the five R's of OERs. That means that in order for a resource to be considered a true OER, they must contain these five key points, OK?

So let's look at the right hand side here. So revise. So if a resource is a true OER, then we have the right to revise that resource. So content can be adapted, adjusted, modified, or altered, right?

We've all used books and resources that we think, wow, this book is great. Maybe about 70% of it is great. But 30% of it, oh, I can't use. I wish it had this. I wish it had included this. So with an OER, You have the right to adapt that resource and make it useful for your course.

You also have the right to remix. So the original or revised content can be combined with other content to create something new, OK? So if you like that resource, let's say you like two or three resources and you like one unit from one book, another unit from another book, a third unit from another book, you can remix those-- if it's a true OER, you can remix those three resources to create a whole new resource.

The next one is redistribute. So with this R, you can make copies of the content and they can be shared with others in its original revised or remixed form. So you want the right to redistribute.

On the left hand side, we'll start at the top with reuse. And this gives you the right to reuse the content in its unaltered form or in its altered form as well. So you can use it in your course, you can talk about it on in a presentation. So many uses for reuse.

The last one is retain. So you should have the right to retain a copy of the resource. You should be able to archive it or own copies of the content. If you use an LMS, you can upload that resource to your Canvas or Google Classroom. So those are the 5 R's and resources that contain the 5 R's along with the Creative Commons license are considered OERs. Any questions?

Anthony Burik: Yeah, Diana. We have a couple of questions. So from Duren. I think this is back on the redistribute item. So her question is, is it just make copies or put it back up online for free distribution?

Diana Vera-alba: Both. So you have the right to-- so for example, the book or the resource that I'm working on I'm remixing it. So I'm changing it. I'm adding some of my own resources to it.

I'm going to add it to my Canvas comments, I'm going to share it with my faculty members, and I'm also going to upload it to one of the repositories. I'm going to upload it to Creative Commons website. So yes, it's both retained. I mean, both make a copy and also you can upload it to your site.

Anthony Burik: OK, great. And Dr. Broussard asked about, will the slides be available? Yeah. At OTAN, we are making the recordings. We do video remediation as a part of our process for making the videos available publicly. So it will take a little time to get the video available on the OTAN website. But Diana, are you sharing slides separately or how you going to do that?

Diana Vera-alba: Yes. At the end of the presentation, I can share them in chat.

Anthony Burik: OK, great.

Diana Vera-alba: Show the link chat.

Anthony Burik: OK, she says-- or sorry, Dr. Broussard says, fantastic. Thank you. And then Austin has a question. So this mean, back on the 5 R's, so this means that I could take parts of the OER and mix it with my school's curriculum books, correct?

Diana Vera-alba: Correct. As long as your school's curriculum books are not copyrighted materials because then that's when we run into problems. So as long as your curriculum-- it doesn't have to be an OER. It can be a free resource and copyright free resource. Then you can remix it without violating copyright law.

Anthony Burik: OK, thank you, Diana. We're good for questions at the moment.

Diana Vera-alba: OK, all right. So let's go ahead and continue. And so these are the five Creative Commons licenses. So you'll see this barometer here. On the left hand side, the licenses at the top are the least restrictive. So they're identified by the green section here.

And as you go down the list, it starts getting yellow, kind of like a traffic light, like a warning something's happening here. There's some kind of restriction here. And then the most restrictive licenses are towards the bottom. So these have some-- you notice the circle with slash through it, right? So there's some-- not some things you cannot do, OK?

So let me go over these really quick. So they're identified by symbols and also the symbols are defined here by acronyms, and then the definition is in the last column. So the first license is CC BY. And this license lets you distribute, remix, tweak, or change and build upon the original work, even commercially, as long as you credit the original creator.

This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. So all of these licenses have the CC BY. So CC stands for Creative Commons. The BY is by attribution. That means you have to give the original author credit for their work somewhere in your presentation or somewhere in your book or revised material. Something like, this was adapted from Diana Vera-Alba's book on blah, blah, blah, right? And then, of course, you will take credit for the new revised work as well.

So the next license is CC BY-SA. And this is Creative Commons by Attribution-ShareAlike. So this license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon the original work, even for commercial purposes, as long as you credit the original work and license your new creations under the identical terms.

This license is often compared to copyleft free and open source software licenses. All new works based on the work should carry the same license. So any derivatives, which are changes, will also allow commercial use. This is the license used by Wikipedia.

So with this license identical to the first license, but they added the share alike. And that means that they want you to use this same exact license on your revised work so that if they are sharing it with you, they want you to share it with others. It also saves the integrity of the original author's work of how they want their resource to be shared. They want it to be shared alike with everyone else. Any questions so far?

Anthony Burik: So Diana, Harold is asking if we can get a copy of this license breakdown. So you did mention that you will share the slides at the end of today. So this will be included in the slides, right?

Diana Vera-alba: Correct. And all of the images that I have are linked out. This particular image was created by another OER coordinator at my district from Mesa College. And so if you get to the slides and you click on image here, see how it's underlined, it's a direct link to the picture.

Anthony Burik: OK, perfect. Thank you.

Diana Vera-alba: All right, so the next license is CC BY-ND. And this stands for Creative Commons by Attribution-NonDerivatives. So this license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it's passed along unchanged and in whole with credit to the original work.

OK, so now we're not seeing I can remix or tweak, right? We don't see that in this. That's what the nonderivatives means. So you can use the resource exactly as is without making any changes. So if you see this license, equal means the same. You have to keep it the same.

Again, you can use it for commercial purposes, commercial and non-commercial purposes, but you cannot make any changes to the work. It has to stay in its original form. Any questions on this license?

Anthony Burik: Diana, just to say, I actually tracked down the chat in your Canvas course, and I put the link to the page in the chat if people want to look at that chat directly. But this is the beauty of OER, being able to find these resources available online, take a look at them, share them, and then do all the things that you want to do with them in OER. Yeah.

Diana Vera-alba: Thank you, Anthony.

Anthony Burik: Yes.

Diana Vera-alba: Perfect example. [laughs] OK, all right. So let's go to the next license and this is CC BY-NC. And this stands for Creative Commons by Attribution-NonCommercial. So with this license, you can remix, tweak, and build upon the original work noncommercially.

Your new works must be noncommercial and acknowledge the original work, but you don't have to license your derivative works on the same terms. So this one is missing the SA, right? But what it's not missing-- or yes, what it is missing is the right to make a profit off of it. So that's what this symbol is here.

So you can use it, you can change it. You don't have to use the same license as the original author, which I always thought this was strange because that could lead to someone thinking that they can make a profit off it or they can-- no, never mind. I just confused myself.

But anyways, this is the license I least like for some reason because that part to me to many is confusing. Like, I cannot make a profit, but I can change it. So yes, that is noncommercial, OK? Any questions on that license?

Anthony Burik: I think we're good, Diana.

Diana Vera-alba: OK, so the next license is CC BY-NC-SA. And this stands for Creative Commons by Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. So this license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon the original work noncommercially as long as you credit the original work and license your new creations under the identical term.

So we can not make a profit. We can change the resource, we can remix it, we can mix it with our own materials as long as we use the identical license on that new resource that you create, OK? Any questions on this license?

All right. And the last one is the most restrictive license and this is CC BY-NC-ND, which stands for Creative Commons by Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative works. So with this license, you can only download the original work and share it with others as long as you give credit to the original author.

You cannot change the original work, so no remixing no changing in any way, or you cannot use it commercially. So basically with this type of resource, you can only use it as is.

You can teach with it. You can share it with a colleague. You can even upload it to your Canvas LMS account, or your Google Sites, or your Google Classroom without any changes. No changes to that work and you have-- any time you add anything to a website, you have to add the license. So just to be clear on that. Any questions?

Anthony Burik: Diana, yes, there is a question from Austin. So basically like a citation in a paper or a PowerPoint, correct?

Diana Vera-alba: Correct. Mm-hmm. So that's basically what the licenses do, they are citations. In the OER world, we call them attributions. But they are just like citations.

Anthony Burik: OK, I don't see any other questions at the moment.

Diana Vera-alba: All right, so let's go ahead and continue. So we're going to look or watch a video on OERs, the 5 R's and open licenses. So everything I just went over wrapped up in a great little five minute video. So let's watch.

[video playback]

- OER, the 5 R's and Creative Commons licenses. David Wiley wrote about the 5 R's of open when he published his original work Defining the "Open" in Open Content and Open Educational Resources. His work was published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. This means it can be used and in this case, adapted and remixed as long as we give credit to him for the original work.

The 5 R's include retain-- the right to make own and control copies of the content. Reuse-- the right to use the content in a wide range of ways. Revise-- the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself.

Remix-- the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new. Redistribute-- the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others.

The 5 R visual used in this video was created by the State University of New York OER services. The visual was shared using the same license David Wiley used. It too was used, adapted, and remixed, and the creator has been given credit.

Creative Commons licenses often accompany open educational resources. The license associated with a resource guides which of the 5 R's of open you can engage in with regard to the resource.

Adopt OER. Let's say you found a resource developed by someone else and it suits your objectives perfectly. You would like to start using it right away and you don't want to change a thing.

You want to retain, reuse, and redistribute the work. All licenses require that you credit the original creator. With CC BY Attribution, that is all that is required of you, so it is the most open of all the licenses.

CC BY-SA means by attribution and share alike. In other words, you must credit the creator and share the resource as it was shared with you. Some licenses include ND, which means no derivatives. Others include NC, which means that the resource was not intended for commercial purposes or monetary compensation.

Adopt OER. Now imagine discovering an OER that has many of the elements you were looking for but misses the mark on some others. So you are hoping that you can adapt it. You intend to modify, alter, customize, and change it. You get the idea.

Lauren Anstey was the original creator of the video, adopt, adapt, create, which I adapted to make this video. YouTube allows users to mark their videos with a creative common CC BY license, which is what Lauren did.

Now, let's take the idea of adapt a little bit further and say that during your search, you located a couple of other resources that would complement the adaptation of the original resource you found. So now it is your intention to embark on a remix of several open educational resources.

You'll need to look for licenses that allow for all 5 R's because you want to retain an original, reuse parts of it, revise other sections, and remix elements of other resources with it. You intend to redistribute the revised and remix works. In other words, you are going to share the resulting derivative work.

You'll need to stay away from Creative Commons licenses that include ND because ND stipulates that the work be passed along unchanged and in whole, no derivatives. And remember when you see SA associated with an open resource, plan to share your derivative in the same way that the original was shared with you.

Create OER. Now imagine you've searched and searched Creative Commons licensed resources and nothing suits you. You've decided to create new content. Your work will grow through your own expertise and intellectual engagement or through a collaboration with your students.

When it is complete, you'll need to decide how your work will be shared by considering the following questions. Will you allow adaptations of your work? Do you want adaptations to be shared in the same way that you shared? Will you allow commercial uses for your work?

Your answers will help you zero in on the right Creative Commons license for you. My choice for this video CC BY Attribution. For more information, visit creativecommons.org/choose.

[end playback]

Diana Vera-alba: OK, all right. Any questions about that video? At the end of the video, she mentioned creativecommons/choose. So Creative Commons has an attribution builder on their website.

It's really nice, very easy to use, and it has a series of five different yes and no questions to help you decide-- if you're undecided, to help you decide which Creative Commons license is for you. So at the end of those five yes/no questions, it'll give you the license that best fits your answers or your desires for your materials.

All right, so let's go ahead and continue. And we're going to look at the differences of OER and open resources. So what are some differences between OERs and open resources? So the chief difference between open resources and OERs is that users have the ability to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute.

So remember those licenses that we looked at, some of those licenses are very restrictive. So the ones towards the bottom-- so let's go back to that chart. Oops, there where it is. So these licenses at the bottom, they are considered open resources, but they're not considered Creative Commons-- or I'm sorry, they don't contain the 5 R's. So they are free to use.

You could still use those resources. You just can't make any changes to those resources, right? So that's what that definition means here. So in order for OER to be a true OER, it has to contain the five R's, OK?

So what are OER and how are different from other resources? So OERs have general rights for copying and repurposing that make OER different from other educational resources available online free of charge.

So free materials and courses such as MOOCs allow users only fair use rights or rights stated and specifically license issued by the publisher. So these types of resources, you can still use in your classroom. You just wouldn't be able to-- more than likely, you wouldn't be able to remix them or change them.

Most of them cannot be legally copied and users cannot create their own courses based on them or update them if a mistake has been found-- not, that is, without explicit agreement from the copyright owner. So here in the third bullet point, we're talking about copyrighted materials, right?

Now at my district, we use a copyrighted book for our lower level ESL students. So there's a book called Ventures that we use. And since my district purchased licenses for Ventures to be used in Canvas, our faculty can upload the Ventures modules into Canvas because they have that agreement with the copyright owner, OK? So it is possible but that agreement usually means a cost, which that was the case for our district.

In the case of open educational resources, all users are given the rights above without needing to request permission from the copyright holder. So that's one of the advantages of the Creative Commons licenses is that the author has already spelled out for you how they would like you to use their works, either with CC BY, meaning it's open, you can do whatever you want with it as long as you give me credit for it, or with the restrictive license where some of them say no derivatives, no changes, or noncommercial. You cannot make a profit off of it, OK?

So the users rights are clearly specified under the Creative Commons licenses and easily understandable. So most OER materials are published under free Creative Commons licenses or as public domain. OK, so we're going to look a little bit at what public domain means.

So public domain versus open license. So if some resource is identified as public domain, that means the copyright ownership is waived. So there is no copyright attached to a resource that is identified as public domain. The author gives away their right to the public to reproduce and redistribute creative works.

Also with something that is in the public domain, since they are giving up and waiving their ownership, you don't have to attribute it back to the original owner. You could-- I always do and I do it for two purposes so that if someone wants to know where I retrieved that resource from, like that image that someone asked me about earlier in the presentation, there's a direct link and I don't forget where I retrieved that information.

And also, it doesn't feel right to me not to give the original author credit. So anything in the public domain the most important thing is the owner waves their copyright.

With the open license, so those six Creative Commons licenses, the copyright ownership is retained. So even though I license my work with the least restrictive license, which is CC BY, I'm not giving up my copyright. I still own the copyright to that original material.

I'm just illustrating or I'm explaining exactly how I want downstream users to use my materials. So the author grants broad rights to the public to reproduce and redistribute their creative works, OK? Any questions about public domain and Creative Commons license work?

Anthony Burik: Diana, just a comment from Duren. I believe this comment refers to the open license or the CC licenses that you've been talking about. So Duren's comment was it's also a CYA showing you have the right to use it. Yes.

Audience: So that comment was in reference to public domain, putting the attribution for public domain. People-- if you don't put it there, then they don't know whether or not you had permission. So if you say it's public domain and I got it from here, then you have essentially CY aid so that no one will come behind you and say, oh, you stole that image from somewhere.

Diana Vera-alba: Right. And all of the licenses, Creative Commons licenses, including public domain, if you'll be able to retrieve those from the Creative Commons website. And there's a direct link to the definition, which is really nice. So whenever you attribute work, you're right, it's a CYA because you are directly linking to the definition, you kind of washed your hands of that for downstream users.

The other thing with that, thank you for bringing that up, is that there are many copyrighted materials out on the internet, right? And you don't know-- unless you look at the terms of use or unless it's licensed or unless it has some kind of logo, you don't know if it is copyrighted or not.

So that's always my concern when I talk to faculty and I'm trying to help them find materials online that are OERs. The first thing I show them is where to look because sometimes it's not apparent, sometimes it's not on the main page, and the terms of use is usually where we find it or the About section. If they don't have a terms of use, the About section might spell it out.

But yeah, that's one of the concerns with so many materials being online now is not knowing-- if somewhere down the line it had a copyright logo and someone uploaded it without that logo, that's kind of scary too.

Anthony Burik: OK, thank you, Diana, and thank you Duren for clarifying. My mistake there. And then we do have a question, Diana, from Austin. So OER are open license, not public domain, correct?

Diana Vera-alba: Correct. So these are different. There's public domain, which is actually a C with a circle around it. It looks like copyright. It's a CO, sorry, not just a C. The C is copyright. But it's a C and a 0 and that stands for public domain. And the open licenses are the Creative Commons licenses, the six that we just went over that all start with the CC BY. So yes, these are two distinct types of materials.

Anthony Burik: OK, thank you. I think we're good for questions now.

Diana Vera-alba: OK, thanks. All right, so we're going to watch another video called want to work together. And notice that this has the Creative Commons logo up on top. This was created by Creative Commons. So let's watch.

[video playback]

[music playing]

- When you share your creativity, you're enabling people anywhere to use it, learn from it, and be inspired by it. Take the teacher who shapes young minds with work and wisdom from around the globe, and the artist who builds beauty out of bits and pieces she finds online, and the writer whose stories use ideas and images crafted by people you've never even met.

These people know that when you share your creative wealth, you can accomplish great things. They and millions of other people all around the planet are working together to build a richer, better, and more vibrant culture using Creative Commons.

To understand Creative Commons, you need to know a little bit about how copyright works. Did you know that when you create something, anything from a photograph to a song, to a drawing, to a film, to a story, you automatically own an all rights reserved copyright to that creativity?

That's true. Copyright protects your creativity against uses you don't consent to. But sometimes full copyright is too restrictive. What about when you want all those millions and millions of people out there to use your work without the hassle of coming to you for permission? What if you want your work to be freely shared, reused, and built upon by the rest of the world?

Luckily, there's an answer. Creative Commons. We provide free copyright licenses you can use to tell people exactly which parts of your copyright you're happy to give to the public. It's easy. It only takes a minute, and it's totally free.

Just come to our website and answer a few quick questions. Like, will you allow commercial uses of your work? And will you allow your work to be modified? Based on your answers, we'll give you a license that clearly communicates what people can and can't do with your creativity. You don't give up your copyright. You refine it so it works better for you.

Welcome to a new world where collaboration rules. It didn't even exist just a few years ago, but now there are millions and millions of songs, pictures, videos, and written works available to share, reuse, and remix all for free. You want to work together, then join the Commons, Creative Commons.

[end playback]

Diana Vera-alba: OK, All right. So let's go ahead and continue. Any questions?

Anthony Burik: Diana, just a comment from Austin. He said that some companies force employees to turn their copyright ownership of their ideas to the company.

Diana Vera-alba: Yes, it depends on their work contract, right? And the same goes for works as instructors that we are paid for by the district to create. So for example, I am in a grant right now and that grant was provided by the district. And there are four instructors that got together and were revising and remixing a work.

We're getting paid for that. So since we are getting paid for it by the district, now the district owns that material. Our names will still be on it as creators, as authors of the new work, but the district does own that work. So it really depends on your contract with your district or your employer. So you want to be very clear about that. Any another question?

Anthony Burik: Diana, sorry, so then the follow-up question from Austin. So with that example, could you use the material from that in a new project with a different employer?

Diana Vera-alba: That's a good question and I would ask my employer because it depends on how you were paid, and it depends on the stipulations of that contract. So it depends. It's unique for every individual contract that you enter. Yeah.

Anthony Burik: OK, thank you, Diana. So I think we're good for questions.

Diana Vera-alba: OK, all right. So let's go ahead, whoops, and continue. So now let's look at copyright. So what is copyright? And this comes from the US Copyright Office. So copyright is a type of intellectual property that protects original works of authorship as soon as an author fixes the work in a tangible form of expression.

So like the person mentioned in the video, as soon as you create something, whether it's a piece of music, it's a picture, something written that's in a tangible form and you automatically own copyright.

So in copyright law, there are a lot of different types of works, including paintings, photographs, illustrations, musical compositions, sound recordings, computer programs, books, poems, blog posts, movies, architectural works, plays, and so much more. So once you create an original work and fix it, like taking a photograph, writing a poem or blog, or recording a new song, you are the author and the owner.

So that's really important for us to understand because in the past, there were different means of obtaining copyright and some of them were costly, right? You would have to hire an attorney or someone that is usually a copyright attorney. Or I've also heard things like people would email themselves their manuscript or something like that.

So there were different ways that people tried to kind of gain that copyright. But in reality, now once it's created in a tangible form, you own that copyright. OK, all right. So let's continue. We're going to watch this short video on copyright. And let's go ahead and start.

[video playback]

[music playing]

Sorry, the beginning is just music.

- These are Jack and Meg White, also known as the White Stripes. They're a band from Detroit. They make rock and roll without a bass guitarist. This is Steve McDonald of the veteran band Red Cross.

Steve thought the White Stripes could use a bass player. So he appointed himself. He took the White Stripes album called White Blood Cells and rerecorded it, laying a bass track down on every song. Then he released the results as mp3 on Red Cross's website. He even made up a new album cover entitled Red Blood Cells.

McDonald began putting these copyrighted songs online without permission from the White Stripes or their record label. During the project, he bumped into Jack White who gave him spoken assent to continue. It can be that easy when you skip the intermediaries.

Collaboration across space and time, creative co-authorship with people you've never met, standing on the shoulders of your peers, it's what the internet is all about. It can be that easy when you skip the intermediaries. But couldn't it be easier still?

Not many of us are liable just to bump into Jack White and get the green light. And he's not going to let just anyone play the bass over his songs in any case. But what about other artists who might want you or me to play along? Shouldn't we be able to if they don't mind?

Enter one of the internet's most famous citizens, a face familiar to the world over, a public identity rivaled only by a handful of corporate giants and global superstars, the big copyright C. Everyone knows what big C stands for. Big C means all rights reserved. Big C means ask permission. Big C protects copyright owners and notifies the rest of us of their ownership.

Time was when you had to put big C on anything you wanted to copyright or else it entered the public domain, the Commons of information where nothing is owned and all is permitted. You had to put the world on notice to warn them. That was big C's job, and it was a useful one.

What changed? The law. By the late 1980s, US law had changed so that works become copyrighted automatically the moment they're made. The moment you hit Save on that research paper, the second the shutter snaps closed, the instant you lift your pen from that cocktail napkin doodle, your creation is copyrighted whether big C makes a cameo or not.

So suddenly there's no quick way of knowing whether something's owned or not. The new rules may be clear about how you get to own a work. You don't have to do anything. But they say nothing at all about how you should go about announcing that you want to allow certain uses of your work.

So what? Well, if you're a digital filmmaker who's every frame must be cleared by an army of lawyers before making the cut, or if you're in a band whose label won't let you put a song on the file sharing network, or if you're a professor trying to put together online course materials, or if you're a DJ chasing down permission to use every snippet of song in your sonic collage, if you're one of these people, then you know so what.

We interrupt this brainstorm to call the lawyers. You drop what you're doing and call all the lawyers. You ask for permission even to use a word the author doesn't mind if you use it because you have no idea what the author's intent is.

You ask for permission even to share some of your rights, or you venture forward unsure what your risks and rights are exactly. Or in a haze of legal doubt, you do nothing. Bottom line big C is out of a job. The middlemen are not.

Enter Creative Commons. Creative Commons wanted to find an easy way to help people tell the world up front that they want to allow some uses of their work. We called the experts, the US Copyright Office, for advice. Their response-- there's no real answer. Get creative. So we got creative.

How? Our CC brand marks works that are governed by Creative Commons licenses, a set of standardized copyright licenses available free of charge on our website. We wrote these licenses so that lawyers and courts could read them. Then we translated them into a language you can read, and then we translated them into a language computers can read.

Now, CC isn't meant to compete with copyright but to complement it. It allows you to retain your copyright while granting the world permission to make certain uses of it upon certain conditions. If the big C is like a red light, then CC is a green light. If the big C says no trespassing, the CC says please come in. If the big C says all rights reserved, CC says some rights reserved.

So you can use the powers of the net to find works for you to share and build upon, and to invite other people to transform or trade yours so that you can get creative not only with what you make, but how you make it available so you can collaborate across space and time, so you can be a co-author with someone you've never met, so you can stand on the shoulders of your peers all without asking permission because permission has already been granted. Creative Commons, get creative. It's easy when you skip the intermediaries.

[end playback]

Diana Vera-alba: OK. Any questions about that video or what you heard?

Anthony Burik: So Diana, I think there have been a couple of questions just about copyright. So Austin asked, in theory, I could come up with a good exercise for my lessons, tell someone else, that person writes it down, and then they own the copyright, correct?

Diana Vera-alba: Yes. If you didn't-- so the definition, if we go back to the Copyright Office, is fixing that idea in a tangible expression. And it doesn't mean that that person would not get sued. So remember, Facebook kind of started that way, right? It was friends talking about this idea. Someone put it in a tangible form and didn't include all the friends that had that idea.

So yes, that can happen, but does it mean that you would lose copyright if you have a good attorney. I don't know. I'm just making that up. No, but that did happen with Facebook and the original owners.

So yes, the important thing is based on the US Copyright Office definition, right? Because if it ever went into a legal battle, they'd probably have you fall back on that definition of a tangible form. And a tangible form of expression is not limited to what I listed here.

Anthony Burik: OK. And then one more question from Harold. So to clarify, you have to register any work in order to buy or own the copyright, correct? And the form is filled out on the US Copyright website, correct?

Diana Vera-alba: That is one way to protect yourself, but the new definition is right here straight from the US Copyright Office. And there's a link to it. So it's best if you do follow that format because then you're following the steps to actually have it out there somewhere that you've fixed it in this tangible form of expression.

But it's not necessary because as soon as I take a picture with my camera, I own the copyright to that picture without having to fill out the necessary paperwork.

Anthony Burik: OK.

Diana Vera-alba: But if it's that important, I would.

[laughter]

Anthony Burik: Right. Part of our society, right?

Diana Vera-alba: Right. Mm-hmm.

Anthony Burik: OK, so I think we're good for questions, Diana.

Diana Vera-alba: OK, all right. OK, so let's get through this. Now this video only because we only have about 20 minutes, maybe I'll come back to it. But this is a great video created by an attorney. He does have a series of these. This version is on copyright exceptions and fair use.

So he goes even deeper into copyright. So it's 12 minutes. So I'm not going to show it here, but I did want to include it. And then you'll have the link once you click on it to this site called Crash Course. And all of his videos are on copyright, but he is an attorney.

So he has some additional information and things he can talk about that I do not have a legal degree on. So yes, I recommend his videos. They're fun to watch. He's funny. He has a very dry sarcastic humor, but they're fun to watch. So I recommend watching his videos.

All right, so we're going to look at identifying OERs. So like I mentioned earlier, if I don't see a license, one of the Creative Commons license, or the public domain logo or copyright logo, then I'm going to go to the terms of use.

Now even when I see a copyright logo, I still go to the terms of use because many times-- we're educators, right? Everybody in this room is educators or linked to education. Many times in the terms of use, there is something spelled out for educators. So don't be discouraged if you see the copyright logo on a site or material that's posted online. Go to the terms of use.

And sometimes they spell things out for educational purposes. This can be downloaded. This book can be used. This worksheet can be used. But they'll tell you typically, if it has a copyright, you cannot make any changes. But you can use it and you can use it in your classroom.

So terms of use is typically what I look at or the section that says legal because that's where they spell out how they want you to use or not use their materials. The About section of a website, sometimes they have a fair use link and what they mean by fair use. Sometimes it'll have a link that says license. So any of these will usually spell out how they want you to use or not use their materials or their site.

There are some great repositories. My to go to are MERLOT and OER Commons. Both of these sites share some of the same resources. I'm going to show you both sites and why I like MERLOT and OER Commons.