What’s the best Creative Commons Licence?

Licensing a blog

For my blog, I would opt for an Attribution – Share Alike licence.

·      I don’t seek commercial gain from my blog, so the issue of whether or not to have a ‘NonCommercial’ licence doesn’t apply.

·      I’d like anything I blog to be disseminated as widely as possible. If I put on a ‘NonCommercial’ licence, then some bloggers who use advertisements on their blogs to generate income wouldn’t be able to use my blog – and I want people like that to be able to use it.

·      I’d like people to be able to amend/evolve/make derivatives of anything I produce as much as they like – I think seeing how something you create can be taken by others and reinterpreted would be great.

Thinking about this in the context of my blog is straightforward, as I don’t really see my blog posts as having much commercial value so it’s easy to just want to be as free as open as possible.

Licensing learning materials that I create

If I think instead about teaching materials that I might create and put online – materials that could be used in a commercial, fee-earning course by other people or corporations – then the question becomes more interesting, as issues of potential ‘lost income’ arise.

I think I would still stay with an Attribution – Share Alike licence, but my reasons would be a bit different: -

·      I’d still like anything I create to be disseminated as widely as possible.

·      My focus, English Language Teaching, has a sufficiently big worldwide market that I think we can all just pitch in and try and spread as many good materials as we can to as many people – it won’t dent our own markets really.

·      I think ‘content’ across many subject disciplines will become a commodity anyway – there isn’t much point trying to ringfence it and charge a rent for it. The value-add will come in other ways – how content is delivered, how different organisations use content to advance effective learning.

·      I value being able to use other people’s learning materials when I teach – so I like the reciprocative principle that people can use my materials in return.

·      I also like the idea that others will enhance what I do – I’m very unlikely to come up with anything that can’t be improved and enhanced if I allow others to work on it.

·      From a practical point of view, I don’t think I could enforce compliance over intellectual property rights anyway.