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Copyright: Does it have a license?

A guide to understanding copyright laws and applications in the classroom and research.

About Licenses

Many copyrighted works can be used for education purposes through a license, when there is not an exemption available for the use.

Many licenses are implicit in "User Agreements,"  or "Terms of Service."

Many educational resources are also available through a Creative Commons License.  This is known as an open license and permits extended use and distribution, adaptation and other modifications.  Many Open Education resources area available with creative Commons licenses.

See below for more information about Creative Commons licenses.

Other Options

Mc-Graw-Hill Publishers has a program that allow you to create textbooks from multiple sources to form your own resource.  Access fees still apply to student's but these are typically no inordinate.

See more here:  McGaw-Hill Create (Links to an external site.)

For course-packs see these options:

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons (CC) is a license for distributing and using copyrighted works.  The CC License platform outlines the rights reserved by content creators and the obligations of others who use the resource.  CC license use a symbol to designate the rights granted by the author and the responsibilities of the user. 

This guide lists the types of licenses in order from least restrictive to most restrictive and provides links for the complete license deed and legal definitions specified by each license type.

CC-BY (Attribution)   This license lets you distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon others work, even commercially, as long as you credit them for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

CC-BY License Deed

CC-BY Legal Code

CC-BY-SA (Attribute - Share Alike)   This license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon others work even for commercial purposes, as long as you credit them and license their new creations under the identical terms.  Any derivative of a resource released with the CC-BY-SA license must also be released with the CC-BY-SA license.

CC-BY-SA License Deed

CC-BY-SA Legal Code

CC-BY-ND (Attribution - No Derivatives)   This license lets you use others' work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared in adapted form, and credit must be provided to the creator.

CC-BY-ND License Deed

CC-BY-ND Legal Code

BY-NC (Attribution - Non-Commercial)   This license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon others 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.

BY-NC License Deed

BY-NC Legal Code

CC-BY-NC-SA (Attribution - Non-Commercial - ShareAlike)  This license lets you to remix, tweak, and build upon others work non-commercially, as long as you credit the author and license your new creations under the identical terms.

CC-BY-NC-SA Legal Deed

CC-BY-NC-SA Legal Code

CC-BY-NC-ND  (Attribution - Non-Commercial - No Derivatives)  This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing you to download others works and share them as long as you credit yhe author, but you can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.

CC-BY-NC-ND License Deed

CC-BY-NC-ND Legal Code

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