144:365: Creative Commons Attribution

A couple of days ago, JR Dingwall linked to a very timely post by David Wiley that describes the attribution PLACEMENT obligations under a Creative Commons license. To be honest, this issue of where to attribute has always been a fuzzy point for me when you are using excerpts across a multi-page/sectioned work.

I’m currently working on an online course that borrows heavily from the fantastic National Center for Accessible Materials website, a CC-BY-SA licensed work. The tricky part is knowing where to place the acknowledgment within my multi-page/multi-sectioned derivative work. While I do a link back on each new page (as a way to add context/cite/reference the original work), I truly didn’t know if it was sufficient just to add the full attribution in the reference section to meet the CC-By provisions. According to David’s interpretation, it is!

David’s post links us to the Creative Commons FAQ for the answer to a question I’ve always wondered but never dug to find out:

Can I insist on the exact placement of the attribution credit?

No. CC licenses allow for flexibility in the way credit is provided depending on the medium, means, and context in which a licensee is redistributing licensed material. For example, providing attribution to the creator when using licensed material in a blog post may be different than doing so in a video remix. This flexibility facilitates compliance by licensees and reduces uncertainty about different types of reuse—minimizing the risk that overly onerous and inflexible attribution requirements are simply disregarded.

David’s post was addressing a slightly different issue (when the creator has made their license conditional upon their specific attribution provisions), this FAQ also gives insight into the flexibility granted to the licensee regarding the way attribution credit is given. Good to know …