Copyright, plagiarism and the creative commons

This article comes from Module 2 of my course books Working with Words and Effective Writing. If you would like a copy of the original just contact Mike at thecreativegenie@gmail.com

Copyright

In Australia as in many other countries, original works are automatically covered by copyright provided they meet certain conditions, most particularly that they are original and the result of effort. This means that you have no right to copy, sell or (particularly, in the web context) distribute the work of another person without their permission. You do not have to apply to copyright your work any longer, it is granted automatically. However this does not necessarily give you protection for the use of your work outside of Australia.

The Macquarie Dictionary (Macquarie University 2006) provides the following definition of copyright:

The exclusive legal right granted by law for a certain term of years, to make and dispose of copies of, and otherwise to control a literary, musical, dramatic or artistic work.

Oxford (Oxford University Press 2010) gives the following definition:

The exclusive legal right, given to the originator or their assignee for a fixed number of years, to publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material, and to authorize others to do the same.

Plagiarism

Similarly, plagiarism is taking the work or idea of someone else and passing it off as one's own. There are situations where you can use other people's work but you must always credit it back to the author and not seek to misrepresent it as your own work.

In this course, we have drawn heavily on the work of other people but this is always presented in the form of 'further reading' whereby the source is provided (cited) and the work (aside from formatting) is presented in its original form without embellishment or change. Works cited must always be listed in a bibliography or list of references.   

The Creative Commons

In recent years there has been a concerted effort to extend the knowledge community by making some works—with the author's or creator's permission—available to others without payment. This system is known as the "Creative Commons."

Creative Commons (CC) is administered by an internationally based non-profit organisation devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. Creative Commons achieves this goal through the provision of free, easy-to-use, standardized licenses that allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which rights they waive.

The six basic licenses are as follows. What works for others also works for you as an author.

Attribution

• This license allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to you or the author/creator.
  

Attribution, share alike

• This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don't have to license their derivative works on the same terms. Equally if work you want to use has this type of license you may do the same
  

Attribution, no derivatives

• This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.
  

Attribution, non-commercial

• This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, and although their new works must also acknowledge you and be non-commercial, they don't have to license their derivative works on the same terms. Equally if work you want to use has this type of license you may do the same.
  

Attribution, non commercial, share alike

• This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Others can download and redistribute your work just like the by-nc-nd license, but they can also translate, make remixes, and produce new stories based on your work. All new work based on yours will carry the same license, so any derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature.
  

Attribution, non commercial, no derivatives

• This license is the most restrictive of the six main licenses that allow redistribution. This license is often called the 'free advertising' license because it allows others to download your works and share them with others as long as they mention you and link back to you, but they can't change them in any way or use them commercially.
  

Who owns your work?

Before we leave the subject of intellectual property, we should clear up any misunderstanding authors have about ownership of their work. Just because you write it, does not mean you own the intellectual property rights to it—although you may do so.

Authors generally own their own work and license it to a publisher for printing but the exact conditions will be spelled out in the contract. Basically, if the work you are writing is part of your job, ownership and all rights will more probably be vested in the organisation on behalf of which you are working. In some situations, you may have some rights—but only if these are specified in the contract. Sometimes as an example, a publisher will own the rights to the material you write in printed form but may allow you to retain rights to electronic formats. This should be specified clearly in any contract you sign.

In this regard, ownership of written works is similar to ownership rights in other media. For example, if you go to a photographic studio to have a family portrait professionally taken, do you own the photographs you have paid for? Technically you do not. You own the photographs you paid for but ownership of the negatives (or their digital equivalent) generally remains with the photographer since he or she took the photographs.

Things to remember about intellectual property

The prime consideration is the need to provide proper attribution for the work of others that you use in your writing and especially if the writing is to be shown to other people. You should be aware that once it leaves your hands—either as a letter, email, article for publication, assignment for a supervisor or even a blog on the web, if you have not attributed your idea or thought, you open yourself to a charge of plagiarism. This is considered a very serious matter in the world of writing and even broader composition generally (music and photography especially).

Copyright protects people's original works and if you include whole passages of text from another person or freely distribute (whether or not for profit) you can infringe a person's copyright. In this information age, this applies often to music and photographs that are downloaded from the web. Just because it is on the web does not mean you can freely use it.

On the other hand, some authors, especially in the educational sphere are making their works freely available. Such works are in the public domain but often with conditionality attached. This is known as the 'creative commons' and you should only use the material in keeping with the license conditions attached. At the very least this means attribution of the source.

Take the time to look into the concept of "public domain". Just because something is freely available to you to read or to look at, does not make it part of the public domain. This is a common error made by many people.

Merriam-Webster offers the following definition of public domain in this context:

the realm embracing property rights that belong to the community at large, are unprotected by copyright or patent, and are subject to appropriation by anyone