The popularity and truths of Creative Commons Licences

There has been much talk in recent years about the use of Creative Commons licences, their suitability for use and their pros and cons.

Korn and Oppenheim (2006) explore the these licences and the consideration of using such licences for their works or within an institutional setting. They state that such licences are " driven by those who believe in free and open exchange of digital content"

The full article can be found at: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/korn-oppenheim/ and is well worth a read.


From researching into Creative Commons licences , some key points have been discovered;

- They cannot be used in a restrictive environment and therefore promote Open Access. I.e. they could used within an Institutional Repository that restricted access to items.
- They cannot be modified in anyway and then be used with a work.
- The majority of the Creative Commons licences require derivative works (works that are modified) to be distributed under an exact licence that the original work was published.
- They cater for many different countries, and use the relevent jurisdictions for each.

Creative Commons licences are being more widely used and recognised by a variety of people throughout the world of HE and FE and it looks likely that this will continue.