Free Culture resources

Special days

Name of the day Date Notes
Day Against DRM 4 May Campaign against Digital Rights Management.
Document Freedom Day 30 March Celebrates open document formats and their importance.
Jenny Everywhere Day 13 August Celebrates the first superhero released under a libre license.
Open Access Week Not specified See the Open Access Week site for the current schedule.
Open Education Week Not specified Raises awareness of the open education movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide.
Public Domain Day 1 January Marks when new works enter the public domain.

What is freedom?

What are “free, libre and open” works? Why are some films, books and artworks on this site marked as “free, libre and open”, but others are not?

“Free”, “libre” and “open” are synonyms. They describe works that are free from copyright restrictions, so you can share and adapt them for any purpose. At most, the sharing and adapting is subject to a few requirements, for example that you credit the original creator and that your adaptations are also free, libre and open.

If they’re synonyms, why use different words?

“Free” and “freedom” are focused on your rights. They imply that traditional copyright tramples on the rights of consumers, and that free software and free culture are a moral necessity. “Libre” is the same idea, but without the ambiguity of “free” (which could be interpretted as free-of-charge, not free-of-restrictions).

“Open” and “openness” are descriptive, rather than moralising. They imply that traditional copyright is unsuited for some purposes, and that open source and open content are a pragmatic, efficient alternative.

Defining the terms

What is the distinction between open source and open content or free software and free culture?

In short, open source and free software refer to software while open content/knowledge and free culture refer to everything else (books, movies, etc.)

Is everything Creative Commons also free/libre/open?

No. Free, libre and open works can be shared and adapted by anyone for any purpose.

Some Creative Commons licenses (those with NoDerivatives) cannot be adapted. Others (those with NonCommercial) cannot be used for commercial purposes. Works under those licenses are not free, libre and open.

It’s not about money

The terms ‘free software’ and ‘free cultural works’ might make you think that these works are free of charge. That’s not necessarily true. People sometimes pay a lot of money for free software and free cultural works. ‘Free’ refers to freedoms, not price.

For example, a hard copy version of Shakespeare’s plays is ‘free’ in that you can use it for any purpose, but you can’t walk out of a bookshop with it unless you pay for it first. Once you’ve bought it, you can make copies of it, perform the plays, adapt them to make your own plays and so on. You’re free to use them, but they’re not free of charge.

Is everything with readable source code free/libre/open?

No. Source that is merely publicly viewable is not open source unless it is openly-usable.

What about open access?

Open access describes works which can be accessed online without restriction.

An open access work might not be open-licensed. Or an open-licensed work might not be available online (at least until someone digitises it).

All works of creative expression – books, songs, blog posts, speeches and so on – are under copyright by default. This means that, unless otherwise mentioned, all rights to make copies of that work are reserved by the author.

The law makes some exceptions to copyright, mainly for parodies, news reports and ‘fair dealing’. In addition, some works are in the public domain – typically because it’s been many years since their creator died. Public domain works are not under copyright, so they can be copied by anyone for any purpose.

Some people want others to copy their works. They can do this through exclusive contracts, giving permission to particular people (perhaps publishers, music companies or friends) to make copies. They can also give permission when people ask for it: “Sure you can use my photo – thanks for asking!”

However, some people want to give broader permission than that, for a number of reasons. Maybe they’re sick of expressly giving permission to everyone. Maybe they know that many people would like to use their work but never bother to ask. Maybe they want to grant permission even after they die.

Shareable resources licenses like Creative Commons are a way of avoiding these problems. By releasing a work under a shareable resource license, the creator gives everyone permission to copy the work under some circumstances. As long as they follow those conditions, they don’t need to pay royalties and they don’t violate copyright law.

But what conditions are imposed? That depends on the particular shareable resource license chosen.

What are acceptable conditions?

According to the Definition of Free Cultural Works, there are three restrictions that can be placed on a libre license without it becoming proprietary.

Attribution of authors and no endorsement

A libre license can require that the original work and its creator are recognised in some way, and also that it be made clear that the author does not endorse the adaptation. Use of trademarks may also be limited by the license.

Transmission of freedoms

Libre licenses sometimes require that all derivative works are themselves licensed under the same license as the original work. Otherwise, someone could adapt a libre work but not make that adaptation available for others to share and adapt.

Other terms for this condition include ‘reciprocal’, ‘share alike’, ‘viral’ or ‘copyleft’. The first three terms can describe proprietary works where adaptations must be kept under the same (proprietary) license. The final term, ‘copyleft’, can only describe libre works.

There are two forms of copyleft. Strong copyleft works can only be distributed with other libre works. Weak copyleft works can be distributed with proprietary works, as long as the work itself is still copyleft.

A license without a reciprocal condition is called a ‘permissive’ or ‘copyfree’ license.

Protection of freedoms

These are a set of conditions which require the work to be friendly to the end user. For example, there’s not much use giving me the legal right to edit a program if the program cannot be edited.

As with the other conditions listed above, these are only present in some libre licenses.