Our former colleague Paul Stacey, who is now with Creative Commons, has published a lengthy post: “An Exploration of Open Licenses and Financial Remuneration” today. As usual, the entire post is well worth a read, but in particular he explains the case for Creative Commons licensing in education in a compelling way. Here is an excerpt:
There is a natural inclination to think that Creative Commons open licenses are in opposition to financial remuneration. The thinking goes like this: “If I license my creation in a way that gives others permission to freely access and use it I’m forgoing financial compensation associated with charging for access and use.”
As I consider this I am puzzled by what I see in education.
Lets say I’m an educator employed by a public educational institution. My salary is essentially paid for by public taxpayer dollars. Given the way the economy works – if you pay for a good you get that good, it’s natural to expect that works developed by the educator should be freely accessible for use by the public. Yet this is not the case. Course materials educators create during their publicly paid for employment are not freely available to the public that paid for them. Shouldn’t public funds result in a public good?
But, you might say, it takes money to make the course materials educators create available to the public. This is true, but digital changes the economics of doing so. With digital the cost of copying is close to $0. The cost of distributing digitally is close to $0 as was so eloquently laid out by David Wiley in his presentation at the BCcampus OER Forum. See David Wiley’s presentation in its entirety Why Open Education and OER, and their implications for higher education institutions.
Lets try a different example. Lets say I’m faculty engaged in research. I apply for research grants from the national government and use those grants to conduct my research. When I complete that research the results ought to be available to the public who paid for them. But, and this is what I find puzzling, public access to the results of research requires another payment of public money in the form of a journal subscription fee even when the journal is digital. Given that the peer-review process is also supported through public funds, the public ends up paying for something three times, as Dieter Stein outlined in his keynote “Open access: effects and consequences in the management of scientific discourse” at the University of British Columbia’s Open Access Week. The public 1. pays the scientist, 2. pays to publish, and 3. pays to buy publication. Why does the public have to pay three times?
For more on this I highly encourage you to watch Open Access Explained? from PHD Comics.
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But let me come back to my earlier point. There is a natural inclination to think that Creative Commons open licenses are in opposition to financial remuneration. The thinking goes like this: “If I license my creation in a way that gives others permission to freely access and use it I’m forgoing financial compensation associated with charging for access and use.”
At least in the context of someone being paid by public funds an open license that gives others permission to freely access and use the work isn’t in opposition to financial remuneration. The financial remuneration took place. The Creative Commons license ensures the obligation to the public is fulfilled.
Paul’s post goes on to talk about Creative Commons licensing for artists’ work and other creative works.
At BCcampus, we absolutely believe work created with public funds should be openly licensed and available to the public, which is why we’re involved with open educational resources and support open data as well. We’re finding examples of closed licensed on works created with public grant monies, which in some cases threaten the open licenses given to materials created using our Online Program Development Funds. In those cases, we’re working to change the licensing and educate government departments and public granting agencies about the value of Creative Commons.
Posted by Tori Klassen