{"id":1130,"date":"2007-10-06T23:45:11","date_gmt":"2007-10-06T23:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/open-ed-week-6-copyright-and-the-public-doman\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T22:04:37","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T03:04:37","slug":"open-ed-week-6-copyright-and-the-public-doman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/open-ed-week-6-copyright-and-the-public-doman\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Ed – Week 6: Copyright and the Public Doman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Based on the readings for week 6 in the Introduction to Open Education<\/a> Course, here are the questions we are pondering:<\/p>\n

QUESTIONS: Understanding the importance and value of the public domain, how much (what percentage) of this value would you estimate is realized when works
\nare licensed with a Creative Commons or GFDL license? To what degree would the
\nopen educational resources movement (and therefore the world) be additionally
\nbenefited if OERs were simply placed in the public domain? Please explain.<\/p>\n

Question 1: <\/i>Understanding the importance and value of the public domain,
\nhow much (what percentage) of this value would you estimate is realized when
\nworks are licensed with a Creative Commons or GFDL license? <\/i>
\n
\n<\/i>To answer this question, one must first agree that there is inherent *value*
\nin the public domain and that this value is greater than can be found in
\ncopyrighted works. While I agree there is value in society being able to access
\nworks in the public domain, especially for education uses as discussed further
\nbelow, I cannot overlook the value of copyright to both society and individual
\ncopyright holders. I believe copyright protections play a role in innovation.
\nIndividuals receive protections which allow them to benefit (financially and
\notherwise) from their works. In turn, these innovations better society. However,
\nI also appreciate the lost value associated with copyright protections. As
\nPollack proposes in the
\nValue
\nof Public Domain<\/a>, reduced barriers can encourage more people to be creators
\nof derivative works. Further, as Lessig lays out in
\n“Against
\nperpetual copyright”<\/a>, I agree that there is much public good to be derived
\nfrom limiting an indefinite “monopoly” on a work.<\/p>\n

This brings us to a notion of “trade-offs” between copyright protections and the
\npublic domain. Pollack describes this trade-off in
\nSome
\nTheory and Empirics of Optimal Copyright<\/a> where he notes on page 17:<\/p>\n

\n “The basic trade-off <\/b>inherent in copyright is between increasing
\n protection<\/b> to promote the creation<\/b> of more work and reducing
\n protection from <\/b>existing work<\/b>.” <\/i>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It also brings me a step closer to an answer to the question at hand. I feel
\nthat it is possible that Creative Commons and GGDL are just that trade-off.
\nWhile creators of content receive more limited projections, society benefits
\nfrom the work that is made more freely available. I would argue that the value
\nof this trade-off depends on which license is used (the subject of next week’s
\nreading). Yet, I feel that Creative Commons and GFDL licensing offer a very
\nhigh percentage of the value associated with the public domain. The individual
\nreceives some degree of protection and control over his or her works. In turn,
\nsociety benefits form the increased access, reduced restrictions on use, and
\nlikely greater numbers of created works.<\/p>\n

Question 2: To what degree would the open educational resources movement (and
\ntherefore the world) be additionally benefited if OERs were simply
\nplaced in the public domain? <\/i><\/p>\n

With regard to the OER movement (and education, in general), I feel the more
\nopen the work, the greater the value to society. Therefore, I feel for
\neducational purposes, the “openness” of the public domain offers greater
\nbenefits than from either Creative Commons or GFDL licensing. I think that most
\nof us share Brian Lamb’s observation
\nduring
\nhis 2007 Open Ed keynote<\/a> that when you see a CC
\nat the bottom of a page, most of us think … “oh, that guy is not a jerk” and consider
\nthe work freely available. However, that is clearly not the reality. As Pollock
\nnotes on page 3 of the
\nValue
\nof the Public Domain<\/a>, “… ‘freely’ must be loosely interpreted …”<\/p>\n

This is especially the case with regard to the potential for non-commerical
\nrestrictions imposed by some creators. A non-commercial restriction poses a
\nbarrier to anyone who may want to use the works in the scope of a commercial
\neducational venture. In addition, restrictions regarding the licensing of
\nderivative works can also pose a problem, especially when works of different
\nlicenses are combineg. Therefore, to meet the needs of “open” education, I feel
\nthat the public domain provisions offer a far greater opportunity for openness
\nthan either Creative Commons of GFDL licenses. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on the readings for week 6 in the Introduction to Open Education Course, here are the questions we are pondering: QUESTIONS: Understanding the importance and value of the public domain, how much (what percentage) of this value would you estimate is realized when works are licensed with a Creative Commons or GFDL license? To…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194,280],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-opened"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3019,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1130\/revisions\/3019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}