Implications of the NonCommercial (NC) Restriction for Educational Content Licensed Under a Creative Commons (cc) Licence

Abstract

Individuals and institutions are increasingly making content available under Creative Commons (cc) licences. Creative Commons licences are heterogeneous, even though common discourse often assumes homogeneity. A cc licence that is analogous to the free software licence of the GNU General Public Licence is the cc Attribution-ShareAlike (BY-SA) licence. An informal survey of content on the Internet indicates that less than 24% of educational content uses this licence. Seventy-three per cent of content surveyed uses a cc NonCommercial (NC) restriction on use. Casual conversations with authors who use cc licences indicate that most do not understand the implications of choosing a particular licence. A set of principle-based guidelines for choosing cc licences for educational content is suggested.