Image attribution: "Creative Commons Cupcakes" by eekim is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
What are Collections?
Collections are comparable to a charcuterie board: you collect all of the distinct types of cheeses, meats, olives, pickles, jam, and more and display them on a platter together. Imagining the different types of snacks on a charcuterie board mixed together in a blender or mixed together in one recipe is not only unappetizing and undesirable (to me anyway!), it violates the entire definition of what a collection is and what the final result should be: an anthology of different food types kept together in their original and respective units (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4). More on license types and remixing later, but individual items on a charcuterie board can also be likened to license types that should not be re-mixed or combined due to license incompatibility (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
What Should You Consider License-Wise When Selecting Sources for a Collection?
An organizer of a collection holds copyright only to the sequencing of the individual sources within the collection and to any individual contributions that they made to bring the sources together into a collection of units. Going back to our charcuterie board example, a chef or home chef can take credit for the selection and organization of the individual savory and sweet items, as well as the display of the food items (which could be very creative!) and even for the handmade board itself, if they made it. However they should not lay claim to making the cheese or the sausage since it was purchased. However, they do hold copyright to the jam if they made it themselves from scratch because it is their own unique contribution to the collection (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
Remixes, Adapted Works, and Derivative Works
Unlike our charcuterie board example, an adaptation/remix is like a recipe where we use different discrete works: eggs, whipping cream, sugar, chocolate, salt, and a unique cooking method in order to create a new recipe: sous vide pots du creme (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4). When sharing the recipe with friends, we give credit to the original sources and are transparent with specifics in order to give credit to those original sources' contributions and to also ensure our friends' successes with the recipe (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
"Chocolate" by John Loo is licensed under CC BY 2.0
Canel Arsel, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
DeeAnn Ivie, Sous Vide Pots Du Creme, CC BY 4.0.
Regarding open educational resources, Lumen Learning courses are great examples of adaptations where a mixture of open-licensed, copyrighted, and Public Domain content are combined to create a new work (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4). While Lumen does provide footnotes at the of each page to indicate from which sources they drew in order to create the content on each page, it's not always completely clear by looking closely at a paragraph or a sentence which source the material was from originally (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
Licensing for Image Directly Above: "OER is sharing" by giulia.forsythe is marked with CC0 1.0.
Licensing Considerations: for Remixes, Adapted Works and Derivative Works
When you create an adaptation, no matter the scenario, attribution is the minimum requirement in all cases adaptation (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
An adaptation that uses another work with a NoDerivatives license can be used privately, but public sharing of such an adaptation is not allowed since it violates the NoDerivatives clause of the license (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
If you use a source with a ShareAlike license as a foundational piece of your adaptation, then you must apply the same license to your adaptation (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
License Compatibility Chart
In all cases, you need to take license compatibility into account when making decisions around which sources to include in and which license to apply to your adaptation; some licenses play well together while others do not (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4). Use the chart below to assist you as you discover and evaluate new sources for inclusion in your adapted work (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
The Adapter's License
The license that you select for your own unique contributions to the adaptation is referred to as the Adapter's License (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4). As far as other works that were used in the adaptation, the adapter must adhere to the terms of those licensed works' original licenses (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
The Adapters License Chart: Help With Decision-Making
The left hand column indicates the license of the original works used while the top row indicates the various adapter's licenses:
- Where the column and row intersect to green, the license indicated on the top row can be used for the adapter's contributions to the adaptation (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
- Where the column and row intersect to yellow, use of the license on the top row is allowed but is not advised (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4)
- Dark gray boxes indicate licenses that cannot be used (Creative Commons, 2020, 4.4).
My Collection: A Boston Terrier Halloween: A Photo Grid
Attributions and License: "CC Licenses and CC-Licensed Works: Real World Scenarios and Practical Applications," licensed CC BY 4.0, is a derivative of the September 2020 Creative Commons Certificate Course by Creative Commons, also licensed CC BY 4.0. DeeAnn Ivie adapted content from the Creative Commons Certificate Course Unit 4.4 , adding it to her website "CC Licenses and CC-Licensed Works: Real World Scenarios and Practical Applications."
Credits:
"Creative Commons Cupcakes" by eekim is licensed under CC BY 2.0