development of an education license or license option for Creative Commons

[Heather Ford <hford AT csli.stanford.edu>]

> I think David should be commended for crafting inclusive language with an "opt
> out" feature for the hated institution clause. It's worth noting that the
> default state is "open", and it takes a conscious decision to invoke the
> institution restriction.
>
> The decision on whether this matters, depends on what one thinks about the
> likelihood that some content producers in higher ed might balk at this license
> without an option for the institution clause. I can't say authoritatively, but
> I expect that some would, so why not include the option? I recall Stephen's
> counter-argument (please correct me if necessary) that providing this option
> will cause licensors to choose the more restrictive license, even if they
> wouldn't otherwise, simply because it's there -- especially if it's a readily
> toggled radio button in the online licensing engine. I admit that that 
> scenario
> also seems fairly likely. Which then seems more attractive: a larger pool
> comprised, in part, of more restricted content, or a smaller pool of open
> content?
>
> best,
> Zach

I agree with Zach - but I think that an important point that we seem to be 
missing is that Creative Commons is about creating a *spectrum* of rights - 
we do give guidelines and choices, but we want to create *balance* in the 
present copyright system so that rights are distributed more fairly 
throughout society. If this means that we put the choice of whether 
educational use should be limited to formal institutions or not (depending, 
for example, on very different *national* educational contexts) then I 
think that we should give people that option - hoping that at least they 
will have to think about what education and learning really means and where 
it can take place. I really don't think we should abandon the license 
before testing it out and gauging responses from a wider audience - 
especially the learners, facilitators, educators, teachers, lecturers and 
students who will actually make use of the licenses.

In the end, I suppose it's more about *how much* we want to do - how much 
change is enough for us to introduce to a sector in which these ideas are 
not prevalent (as is the case in the software industry) in order for the 
licenses to be successful and popular. In the end, what Creative Commons is 
aiming for is for people from all disciplines to be presented with a 
variety of different *alternatives* to copyright that make them think about 
what 'intellectual property' is all about. For me, distributing this 
(really vibrant) discussion about what learning is really about to a wider 
public by actually implementing a license (which we can alter in the future 
or add to if the need arises) is much better than doing nothing.

Best,

Heather.


> ==================================
> Zachary Chandler
> Language Technology Consultant
> Director, Language Resource Center
> Colby College
> Waterville, Maine 04901
> http://www.colby.edu/lrc/
> zechandl AT colby.edu
> 207.872.3898
> _______________________________________________
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Heather Ford
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