Mad or what?

Richard McCracken

Head of Intellectual Property

The Open University

Mad

• Our content is valuable

• We are giving it to our competitors

• Death by a thousand cuts

• Damage to our reputation through remixing

• What we get back will be substandard

• We really, no really, need a tight licence

Or what?

• Open is an idea whose time has come• We attract lots of users and create a buzz• Lots of those users might join us• If they do, they might study better and stay

longer• If they do they will support each other• Good remixing will swamp the bad• What we get back will be good• We need a simple, broad licence

Characteristics of open licences

• Broad grant of licence

• Not subject to individual negotiation

• Standardised terms

• Non-commercial/educational/commercial

• Based on collaboration and interchange

• Moral rights are difficult to manage

Licensing issues

• Ownership of content created in-house• Moral rights• Licensing third party content• Business models

what is ‘non-commercial’?• Non-commercial/commercial/competitive• Collaboration• Creation and publication of content by users

Why choose Creative Commons?

• Standard within the open content communities

• Mark of commitment

• Easily understandable

• Assessment of the business models

• Moral rights managed in the institution

• Part of the project research outcomes