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Information regarding Creative-Commons-licenses

The Creative-Commons-Licensing enables to implement Open Access by standardized licensing contracts. Creative-Commons-licenses are based on the common regulation of copyright law – however, they make it possible to use elaborations in a larger scope than normally provided by copyright law. In that way, barriers for the dissemination of knowledge within research and culture shall be removed e.g. for enabling the translation of an elaboration in another language.

The personal rights of the author, thus the authorship itself, remain unaffected by the Creative-Commons-license, meaning that the author has to be indicated in any case of usage and in each version of Creative-Commons-licenses. However, it may happen that e.g. the forwarding of copies of the elaboration may be permitted also without the consent of the author, if applicable by exclusion of the commercial usage of the licensed elaboration.

Creative-Commons-licenses are internationally very popular. There are different versions of CC-licenses, partly adapted to national legislation – such as Germany. Their validity was already judicially approved. Within Open-Access-publishing in academic journals, in our repository MONARCH-Qucosa and by Chemnitz University Press, we encourage to make use of the licenses “CC BY” and “CC-BY SA” in the current version 4.0. Those are the most open CC-licenses enabling others to make the largest possible continuous usage of your elaboration and thus facilitate the most extensive dissemination. Within its Open-Access-Policy, Chemnitz University of Technology recommends the attribution of the CC BY-licence to publications.

For information regarding the publishing by CC-licence , please access the website of the Theses department.

In the following, we would like to introduce to you several Creative-Commons-licenses:

Provided that the name of the author/ copyright holder is indicated, this license permits to copy, disseminate and publically show the contents. Derivatives may be made and disseminated. The content may be used for commercial purposes.

CC BY: Attribution 4.0

This license is recommended by Chemnitz University of Technology for releases in academic journals and in MONARCH-Qucosa, the institutional repository of Chemnitz University of Technology. It is Open Access-compliant.

Provided that the name of the author/ copyright holder is indicated, this license permits to copy, disseminate and publically show the contents. The content may be used for commercial purposes. It may be amended (this includes i.a. translations of the elaboration), the forwarding of the amended version has to be implemented with license of the same kind.

CC BY-SA: Attribution, ShareAlike 4.0

Also this license is recommended by Chemnitz University of Technology for releases in academic journals and in MONARCH-Qucosa, the institutional repository of Chemnitz University of Technology. It is considered as Open Access-compliant.

Provided that the name of the author/ copyright holder is indicated, this licenses permits to copy, disseminate and publically show the contents. Derivatives may be made and disseminated. The content must not be used for commercial purposes.

CC BY-NC: Attribution, NonCommercial 4.0

This license is not considered as Open Access-compliant. As it excludes also some opportunities for continuous usage desirable for academic authors, e.g. text and data mining or the dissemination via ad-supported science blogs or commercial academic networks like Researchgate or Academia.edu, we do not recommend this license.

Provided that the name of the author/ copyright holder is indicated, this license permits to copy, disseminate and publically show the contents. The content must not be processed or published in an otherwise amended version. The content may be used for commercial purposes.

CC BY-ND: Attribution, NoDerivatives 4.0

This license is not considered as Open Access-compliant. As it excludes also some opportunities for continuous usage desirable for academic authors, e.g. text and data mining, we do not recommend this license.

Provided that the name of the author/ copyright holder is indicated, this license permits to copy, disseminate and publically show the contents. The content must not be used for commercial purposes. It may be amended (this includes i.a. translations of the elaboration), the forwarding of the amended version has to be implemented with license of the same kind.

CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution, NonCommercial, ShareAlike 4.0

This license is not considered as Open Access-compliant. As it excludes also some opportunities for continuous usage desirable for academic authors, e.g. text and data mining or the dissemination via ad-supported science blogs or commercial academic networks like Researchgate or Academia.edu, we do not recommend this license.

Provided that the name of the author/ copyright holder is indicated, this license permits to copy, disseminate and publically show the contents. The content must not be used for commercial purposes. It must not be processed or published in an otherwise amended version.

CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution, NonCommercial, NoDerivatives 4.0

This licence is not considered as Open Access-compliant. As it excludes also some opportunities for continuous usage desirable for academic authors, e.g. text and data mining or the dissemination via ad-supported science blogs or commercial academic networks like Researchgate or Academia.edu, we do not recommend this license.

This information is based on the following source published by authorship of Berlin University of Technology with “CC BY 4.0”-licens: https://www.ub.tu-berlin.de/publizieren/veroeffentlichen/urheberrechtliche-fragen/#c50189. Those information were adapted for usage at Chemnitz University of Technology by Chemnitz University Library. Generic masculine expressions were replaced by gender-compliant wordings. Designations specific for Berlin University of Technology were replaced by indications regarding Chemnitz University of Technology. The clarifications of the impacts of the indicated kinds of licenses on continuous usage and the resulting recommendations of licenses by the University Library for the authors were adapted and extended. Also this processing of the elaboration of the University Library of Berlin University of Technology by Chemnitz University of Technology is published with CC BY 4.0-license.

Global dissemination of the elaborations:
The number of CC-licensed elaborations raises constantly. Within a global knowledge pool, your elaborations will become more visible.
Promotion of innovations:
The licenses contribute to the highest-possible involvement and cooperation within the creation of new elaborations. The promote innovations in the way that more people may further develop existing ideas.
Global dissemination of the licenses:
CC-licenses are globally popular. Authors may select between different concepts and indicate the licenses whereby the particular usages may be identified easily. Collections like Flickr, Wikipedia, the Internet-Archive, YouTube and Vimeo use CC-licenses for their upload-process, whereas search providers like Google or Yahoo! have established CC-specific search engines. Several CC-case studies prove the positive impact of those measures.
International application:
CC-licenses are applied internationally. Creative-Commons-licenses are globally applicable and judicially approved. Currently, CC-licensesadapted to the respective copyright law exist in more than 50 countries all over the world. The licenses were ported in the legal system of the country in order to assure that they comply with consumer protection and other legislation. Based on that, there are also generic international versions.
Since 2003, the license package was adapted to the legal system of more than 170 countries world-wide. According to estimations, one billion elaborations were attributed with CC-licenses until 2015.
The selection of CC-licenses is simple:
Creative Commons has established a licensing system which is very easily comprehensible also for legal amateurs and provides others with the opportunity to permit the usage of their contents to users in a simple and fast way while they go on keeping their complete copyright. By usage of a license generator the authors may select the appropriate license by answering some simple questions.
CC-licenses are easily comprehensible:
The licenses are easily comprehensible for authors as well as for users. Each license is designed in the manner of a specific icon which may be added to the content and indicates the concessions for usage. A click on the button leads to “Commons Deed”, a logical summary of the license. This is linked to the complete detailed licensing contract.
Licensed contents are easily traceable:
The CC licence generator embeds a license-specific technical code in digital files. This facilitates it for those who are seeking for contents available for continuous usage to search for CC-licensed contents and to filter according to particular purposes of usage (e.g. for commercial purposes).
CC-licenses provide flexibility:
Creative Commons offer a selection between six combinations of licenses, from the restriction non-commercial continuous usage and no processing (“Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives”-license) up to the unrestricted usage as long as the original author is indicated (“CC BY”, “Attribution”). This enables the authors to determine the exact manner by which they are providing their material for continuous usage.
CC-licenses are legally approved:
As all “open” licenses, also the CC-licenses were elaborated carefully and further developed. By each porting of the licenses, a legal check of the license texts is implemented. The licenses are subject to an academic discourse.
CC-licenses are remix-friendly:
CC-licenses conceding derivatives count among the internationally most re-known remix-licenses.
CC-licenses support the internal administration of rights:
Content-providers are entitled to make use of CC-licensed elaborations under the same conditions as users as well. This provides them with the opportunity to use CC-content in different ways (e.g. in their own films or for commercial activities) as long as they comply with the conditions of the license. Challenges emerging from other particular copyright regulations, such as in the case of orphaned elaborations, may be avoided.
CC reduces the dissemination of specific single-licenses:
It is better to make use of standardized Creative-Commons-licenses than of licenses elaborated for specific cases as in that way your contents may be combined with other contents world-wide released with a CC-license. In addition, the usage of a standardized license like CC proves that the license modules are known by the users which contributes to the facilitation of the licensing system
CC provides integrity:
Information regarding CC-licenses are hosted and administrated on the international Creative-Commons-website. The embedding of license information in the metadata assures that in the case of correct integration they remain unaffected regardless where the content is disseminated.
CC promotes community building and a culture of sharing:
The usage of CC-licenses may serve as an efficient method for generating norms for exchange and continuous usage within an online-community.
CC provides access to infrastructure + supporting materials:
From the CC-website, you have got access to all CC-services dedicated at facilitating the usage of the licensing system. They include the intuitive license generator, determined CC-search engines and the license-icons. There are also a range of help texts and FAQ available on the homepage of CC.
Sources:
  • The benefit of Creative-Commons licences (David Bollier) (in German)
  • Open Content - A practice-oriented guideline for the usage of Creative-Commons-licenses / The Creative-Commons-licensing model (in German)
WFurther information: