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 Wayne Mackintosh |
Hi Everyone, We have a great opportuntiy to get licensing choices right and respecting freedom of choice. Abel wrote: "In a few short months we will also have CC BY SA NC licensing working steadily upwards to full CC BY licensing. You can imagine how I have to work within UNESCO's steady-as-she-goes processes." I appreciate the challenges of intellectual property policies within large international agencies. However, UNESCO does not own the intellectual property of the contributions to the OER platform. UNESCO, could in terms of its conditions of service state that contributions are licensed under a CC-BY-SA-NC license but I don't think such an approach is aligned with the principles of a modern democracy where we respect freedom of choice. Moreover, it may not be legally possible for some contributors to participate on the OER platform under those conditions. In my own context, as a matter of policy, I would not legally be able to participate on a site which does not use free cultural works appoved licenses (CC-BY, CC-BY-SA) or works dedicated to the public domain. Moreover, the core principles of engagement of the OER university concept have committed to releasing outputs under free cultural works approved licenses. I would recommend the following solution:
Given the OER Foundation's committment to free cultural works licensing -- we would not be able to host discussions for the OER university on a site which uses a CC-BY-SA-NC license :-(. Let's respect the IP choices of individual users and allow them to specify how their IP is used. UNESCO of course is free to license its creative works under their chosen license. To assist with internal discussions, there are a few precidents which may be useful:
Hope this helps --- If you need any help in discussing licensing alternatives, please feel free to contact the OER Foundation. Consider this a free gift to building a sustainable OER ecosystem :-).
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