Plaintext
Deconstruct the geek-speek
by Kerryn Mackay
Open content
The phrase “open content”, referring to “freely available
and usable”, was coined by David Wiley, a graduate from
Brigham Young University in the United States. Wiley co-
founded the Open Content project and put together the first
licence specifically for content (versus the existing licence
for software) in 1998. As its name implies, open content
refers to material (academic, educational, creative and
media) that is free from the restrictions of default copyright.
In order for it to be accessible for people to copy, download,
share, make derivatives and redistribute, open content often
applies a licence that tells others what they can do with
the material. This licence specifies the default uses that
are allowed without the permission of the copyright holder.
If users wish to make other use of the material, they must
ask permission of the copyright holder. This could involve
monetary compensation.
l The most contentious issue around open content is
whether it should only encompass content that allows
derivatives and/or commercial use.
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l Open content licences allow for certain rights to be reserved, Digital commons some rights, rather than the blanket-notion of copyright which states
compared to default copyright which states that all rights are Digital resources which have been recognised as “public”. In the that all rights are reserved. The kinds of rights that can be reserved
reserved in terms of copying, distributing or making derivatives. same way that the transport system requires a set of road networks through the use of a Creative Commons’ licence are:
maintained by the government, so too does the technology industry l Attribution
Floss – Free/Libre Open Source Software. require a set of resources held in common in order for innovators to l Attribution with non-commercial usage
Richard Stallman, a computer programmer from New York, first prosper. l Attribution with non-commercial usage and no derivatives
allowed
developed the Gnu-GPL licence and the Free Software Foundation.
l Attribution with non-commercial usage and share-alike (meaning
The movement began in the mid 1990s and was largely a response The African digital commons if any derivative work is made from the original, the same
against large proprietary companies “hiding” their code in order to To assist the growth of an African digital commons, key cultural and
licence must be attached to the new work)
sell software for profit. The “libre” part of the acronym was added to knowledge products must be made accessible in order to inject l Attribution and share alike
distinguish between “free as in freedom” and “free as in free beer”. shared resources into the development of a culture of innovation.
Free software has made the world five promises: Free and open source software and content which is open are key
Creative Commons ZA
1. The freedom to run the program for any purpose ingredients in this vision.
South Africa is a recent addition to a growing list of countries
2. The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to that have imported the Creative Commons licences into national
your needs What is Creative Commons? jurisdiction. Creative Commons South Africa is a web portal
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your A US-based non-profit organisation working in 31 countries which dedicated to showcasing the work of local creators, educators and
neighbour offers an alternative to default copyright that allows creators of administrators who use Creative Commons licences.
4. The freedom to improve the program and release your cultural products to both retain control over their works and make http://za.creativecommons.org/
improvement to the public so that the whole community benefits explicit how they may be used by a wide community. Creative
5. The ability to have absolute access to the source code of the Commons has created digital licences that can be attached to Published under the Creative Commons Attribution South
program creative works whereby the author of the work may choose to reserve Africa 2.0 licence
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