The Common Information Environment (CIE) commissioned this study to investigate the potential for Creative Commons licences to clarify and simplify the process of making digital resources available for re-use....During the study, workshops were held for key stakeholders in two groups - rights holders, primarily representatives of CIE organisations, and users of CIE produced digital resources, including the public, teachers at all levels of education, museum and library staff....The study concluded that many resources produced by CIE organisations could be made available under a common licence and that Creative Commons would allow a substantial amount of CIE resources to be made available for reuse. Other existing common licences, such as Creative Archive and Click-Use could be used if Creative Commons cannot be applied but their use should be minimised to avoid removing many of the key benefits of the Creative Commons Licences.....Recommendations: [1] Resources should be made available for reuse unless there is a justifiable reason why they should not. [2] The reuse of resources should be as unconstrained as possible. For example, resources should be made available for commercial reuse as well as non-commercial reuse wherever possible. [3] The range of permitted uses of resources should be as wide as possible, for example, including the right to modify the resource and produce derivative works from it. [4] Reuse should be encouraged by permitting others to redistribute resources on a world-wide basis. [5] Resources should be made directly available and discoverable electronically whenever possible. [6] The conditions of use for each resource should be linked directly to the resource so that they are reusable at the point of discovery.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
