The lesson addresses these topics:
- FOSS influence on other “open” movements
- Open content licensing
- Open access scholarship
Advanced Organizer
During the lesson, look for answers to the following questions
- What is freedom of information?
- What is freedom of expression?
- What is open content?
- What online platforms incorporate creative commons licensing?
- What is open access literature, and how does it affect you?
- What are current issues around “open” movements that you care about?
1. Read FOSS Movements: From Digital Rebellion to Aaron Swartz
This is a chapter I wrote for a 2017 book called A Critical Guide to Intellectual Property (originally: Radical Perspectives on Intellectual Property). It summarizes the Free and Open-Source Software movements, while tying these movements to copyright issues in other areas and current events.
While you read and review, please use hypothes.is to ask questions, make comments, or even suggest improvements. It’s 18 pages plus citations, so you may want to download it and highlight or take notes in your favorite PDF reader.
2. View Creative Commons Licenses video
3. Review Creative Commons’ Arts & Culture
If you’re an author, photographer, songwriter, or other creative talent you may wish to allow the public some uses of your work. Motivations vary: some creators want to promote paid licensing of their works by providing samples under Creative Commons, others simply want to maximize the benefits of their works by sharing with others.
Creative Commons provides an online utility to help you select the license that meets your needs. The utility is a simple flowchart, requesting answers to simple questions:
- Are adaptations of your work allowed to be shared?
- Must adaptations be shared under the terms you selected?
- Are commercial uses of your work allowed?
Not only does it identify the license meeting the photographer’s requirements, it also generates code that can be embedded in a website. The code will assist search engines in finding this image, and can be used by others to attribute the image correctly.
Some media sharing sites like Flickr are specifically set up to assign Creative Commons licenses.
4. Read Creative Commons’ Open Access
This page includes the below video explanation of the Open Access movement.
Activity
Create and share an original work under a free culture license. If you are a blogger or website author, you can do this on any platform you wish. Anyone, however, can shoot an original photo and release it on Flickr for free.
- Establish a new account with Flickr.
- Take a new photo of an inanimate object – one you are willing to release under a Creative Commons license.
- Select a license for your photo. Use the Creative Commons license selector if desired.
- Upload your photo to Flickr.
- Select the license.
- Congratulations, you’re now a contributor to the digital commons!
Assignments
Module 3 Test
