[cc-education] cc.edu survey results and deja vu

Zachary Chandler zechandl at colby.edu
Tue Dec 23 15:52:45 EST 2003


I understand David's motivation to produce a meaningful and legally practical
document. However, I have also been influenced over the course of this
discussion by Wouter, Stephen, George and others who push for wide open usage.
I think either result will be positive, it's just a question of _how_ positive.
(Is there anyone who thinks that the wrong iteration would be dangerous?)

What I would like to see is a license that encourages participation from
institution-based content producers, and provides a useful byproduct for
non-tuition-paying learners elsewhere. Can we make that happen? 

1) What about Wouter's idea about an Education Licence, and a separate Open
Education License? Was there a reason why that wasn't pursued?
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-education/2003-December/000103.html

2) What about wiggle room on the other end of the problem. At the risk of
positing an idea across two topics about which I know very little (home
schooling and law) could we specify that materials can be used by an
"educational institution or entity?" An _entity_ could be a family. Presumably
a home-schooling parent has to satisfy the state somehow that they are
sufficiently caring for their child's education, doesn't that technically place
them under the auspices of an institution?

3) Do we really need to worry about discouraging the individual curious learner?
If the RIAA can't significantly deter unauthorized use of music files, would
anyone be deterred by a sub-optimal but still relatively friendly cc license
for private use of educational materials? Would the copyright holders
(universities, colleges, educators) ever be inclined to seek damages for breach
of license? That is, how pragmatic is the debate over the inclusion of the
instition clause?

Incidentally I recently had to see a cc-licensing decision through a 3-school
consortium vetting process for a shared resource (http://leeds.bates.edu/cbb/).
I initially proposed Attribution only, but to satisfy all parties we ended up
with by-nc-sa. The reasoning was (predictably) that we might scare away
contributors with nc.

best,
Zach


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