A Monk's Quest into the Legalities of Licensing

Hmmm…Maybe I should have gone into law when I got back from teaching in China…Then I would be able to explicate a little bit better the ideas that are swimming in my head. Unfortunately, you will have to muddle through some rambling as I try to share some of the highlights from the monk’s reading for this quest.

First, regarding licenses and contracts, The GPL is a License, Not a Contract article helps us understand that the GPL really was written to be a license – it was not designed to be a contract. Therefore it is dealt with under copyright law and not under contract law. In the article, an example of a fishing license is used to help us understand that when we go fishing, we must have a current license, which grants us permission to fish in certain areas, for certain kinds of fish, of certain sizes, and of a certain number. If we are not in compliance with the terms of our license, then it can be revoked and we lose the privilege of continuing to fish. So if we use software from the GPL beyond the terms of the license, then we lose the privilege of using that software.

Related to the GPL (General Public License for software licensing) is the GFDL, or Gnu Free Documentation License, which is used to license other materials beyond software. The GDFL “applies to any manual or other work, in any medium, that contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it can be distributed under the terms of this License.” Within the terms of the license, a user may freely distribute verbatim copies of the work, including the license, notices, etc. that are included in the original, but may not add additional licensing terms. There are limitations if you want to distribute more than 100 copies which require that text be included in the front cover and back cover text. If you distribute “opaque” copies, i.e. paper versions, you must include where transparent copies (html, xml, easily editable formats) are located. If you are going to produce large quantities, contacting the original author is always a good idea, although not required. A document under the GFDL can also be modified and distributed. Modifications can include a different title (the same title can be used as the original, but permission must be given by the original author). The names of those that modified the work must also be included with the original authors and the publisher of the modifications must be listed. Then the copyright notices also need to be included. There are a number of other areas such as acknowledgements and dedications that must be included in the modified version. It is also possible to combine works into one work, provided they all have the same license as well as form a collection provided that the works are verbatim. Translations of the work are considered to be modifications, so they must fit in the requirements for modifications (listed above). These are some of the basic ideas listed under the GFDL.

Free Cultural Works, by definition are “works or expressions which can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose.” A term used to help me understand the basic nature of these communities of artists of many kinds is an ecosystem. This metaphor of everyone working together for the good of the system enlightened me as I thought about the nature of open education. We really are trying to work all together. Within this Free Cultural Works definition, the “free” refers to being free to use, free to study, free to make and redistribute, free to make changes and improvements. In this short article, the authors stressed the importance of the terminology used and to not use words such as Open Access or Open Content because they do not carry the same meanings of “free.” The licenses include being able to freely use and perform the work, studying the work and applying the information, redistributing copies, and distributing derivative works. All licenses of Free Culture Works must contain these same freedoms. In order for the work to be considered free, the source data must be available, free format for electronic works (meaning that there must be a free version of a software available (free of patents) to open up the work, must have no technical restrictions, and there must not be any other restrictions or limitations, such as privacy.

Open Source is focused on software distribution and has the following criteria: 1. It must allow for free redistribution. 2. The source code must be provided. 3. Any modifications or derivatives must be available under the same licensing terms as the original. 4. The derived work may require a different name or version number to distinguish it from the original work to protect the original author. 5. It must not discriminate against any groups or people. 6. It must not discriminate against any field of endeavor, or any particular purpose. 7. The rights for the use of the license must apply to everyone that uses it so the product is not closed, compelling others to have a nondisclosure agreement. 8. The individuals who use the software should have the same rights as the original software provided. 9. The software must not place restrictions on other software, so that distributors can make choices regarding their software. 10. The software must be technology neutral, and I didn’t really completely understand this one. So these are the basics of the open software initiative.

Next are the Creative Commons Licenses. These include:CC -by, which provides someone the ability to share or remix the work as long as they attribute the original author and following the guidelines the original author requested upon creating the license. This one is the least restrictive of all of the Creative Commons Licenses. Next is CC-by-SA, which means you can share or remix the work by attributing the original author (same as previous) and it must be released under the same, similar, or a compatible license. The next one I’ll discuss is CC-by-NC-SA, which means that you can share or remix the work by attributing the original author, you may not use it for commercial purposes, which means “commercial advantage or private monetary compensation,” and it must be licensed under the same or similar license.

Finally, there is the Open Publication License. With this license, the work must include the appropriate copyright notice, which copyright is owned by the author or designee. The scope of the license includes that if any part of the license is unenforceable, then the rest of the license is still in force and there is no warranty – in other words, they are given “as is.” Modifications under this license include “translations, anthologies, compilations and partial documents” and must follow the guidelines that follow: the modifications must be labeled and the modifier must be identified and the date that the modifications were done must be included. The original author must be included and the location of the original work must be identified. The use of the work must not suggest that the work is endorsed by the original author. With this license, it is not appropriate to distribute “substantively modified” modified works without the permission of the author. these “substantive modifications” include “a change to the semantic content of the document, and excludes mere changes in format or typographical corrections.” The license also prohibits the publication of the work or a derivative in book form for commercial purposes unless there has been permission granted by the copyright holder.

These are the general licenses relating to open content. As I did the reading, I wondered if I really wanted to be the monk, but by now, I think I do. The process of writing this has helped me firm up the general principles from each in my own mind. I hope I can remember them now.