Hello there
How can I check to see if my assignments/challenges have been received? I don’t see a central location for this. Have I missed something?
Cheers
Cheri MacLeod
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Webpage - Creative Commons : CC Licenses
Error message - ‘This site can’t be reached’.
Resource - CCLearn explanations, OER and CC licenses
CCO - I am reading the legal code of the CC, CC0 licenses - If my understanding is correct, by dedicating a work or portfolio of works to the public domain by virtue of the CC0 licence, that work or portfolio of works may be commercialised by someone else or by a corporate? Commercialisation opportunities aside, could such a scenario result in a public domain intention becoming an All Rights Reserved reality? Would it not be preferable the license the work / works either CC-BY or CC-BY-SA?
@CatherineDaniel Thanks for reporting that dead link.
The CC Learn site is no longer operational. I managed to retrieve a copy of the reference resource from the Way Back Machine and have uploaded a copy the acknowledgement resource here.
I will update the link on the course site as well.
Good questions.
The CC0 Public Domain Dedication is not a license, because the work has been dedicated to the public domain (i.e. there is no copyright over the work). When a work is dedicated to the public domain, the rights have been expressly waived by the copyright holder (i.e. there are no exclusive intellectual property rights) and therefore a work in the public domain cannot have a copyright license. (In most cases works enter the public domain when the copyright has expired, but a copyright holder may choose waive all rights by dedicating a work to the public domain.)
Yes, works in the public domain can be published under an all rights reserved license. So for example, you can purchase an all rights reserved copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, even though the original work is in the public domain. (Note that the Gutenberg project is an impressive repository which provides copies of public domain works - so you can get access to the public domain “version” of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.)
Copyright holders should have the freedom to waive their copyright including economic rights by dedicating works to the public domain. That said, some authors may wish to retain copyright but with a range of permissions enabled by CC licenses.
Hope this clarifies your questions.
The learning challenges for LiDA103 take the form of blog posts, so they are “submitted” on your personal blog site you set up for the course (rather than a third party learning management system.) This way you retain access and control of the learning outputs you generate.
Learners can register their blog URL for the feed scanner which will include a link to your blog post in the course feed. (This is optional).
In the event that you are planning to submit an assessment for formal credit recognition, then you should follow the instructions for submitting an EduBit micro-credential for LiDA103.
Hi Wayne,
Thank you, yes, you have answered my question and raised another one. So, in the case of this 2016 dispute, https://www.sbs.com.au/news/photographer-sues-getty-for-charging-her-and-others-to-use-her-public-domain-images and re-reading the CC0 legal code, my understanding is correct that the photographer also waived her moral rights? So, if she wanted to ensure that she is acknowledged as the creator of the photographs she took, she should have applied a CC BY licence?
The issue of moral rights in an international context gets complicated ;-).
I’m not a lawyer so cannot provide a definitive answer to your questions :-(.
It gets complicated because the extent to which moral rights can be waived is determined by the respective Copyright Act of the country concerned and this differs between common law countries compared with countries that follow civil law traditions. Even so, there are differences in how the public domain is recognized within Common Law / Civil Law countries. In short - you will need to consult your national copyright act,
But yes, If she had applied a CC-BY license to her photographs - attribution would be legally required, but this is different to a public domain declaration.
Complicating matters is the fact that frequently the media and general public use the concept of “public domain” to refer to content that can be accessed by the general public on the internet irrespective of the copyright status. For example, Carol Highsmith’s website has a clear all rights reserved copyright symbol (which would apply even if there was not a copyright symbol because the default position of published works is all rights reserved.)
So hard to provide a definitive legal opinion on this specific case. My gut feel is that the photographer’s images were not legally dedicated to the public domain as such, hence the claims to sue Gettty for use of her images without permission. That said, I’m not a lawyer and only scanned the article briefly.
What do you think?
I have been looking into this case further. Thhe photographs are available here at LOC and also on Wikimedia under a “No Known Copyright Restrictions” statement. 
. This is different again to CC0 and the copyright rights and neighbouring / related rights are not waived? But then if that was the case, why would you not apply CC-BY? I think, perhaps, Carol Highsmith never intended to waive her copyright rights in the first place.
So, if Getty apply All Rights Reserved to the photos and they are also available under No Known Copyright Restrictions, can Getty sue for unauthorised use?
Wow! I’m impressed with your research - the Highsmith photographs and related Getty usage would make a fascinating case study for future LiDA103 course offerings.
From the links you provide, It looks like the photographer donated a substantial portion of her work to the Library of Congress for “copyright free access”. (Would be interesting to see how the dates compare with the Getty dispute.)
It’s worth noting that CC0 is one way of dedicating works to the public domain, and as mentioned previously should not be confused with the CC licenses. It can also be done via a custom agreement or statement without the need to use CC0.
With all the IANAL caveats - I don’t see how Getty could sue for unauthorised use if the photographer donated her work for “copyright free access”.
There is an ethical dimension associated with the public domain, specifically whether it is appropriate to apply all rights reserved restrictions to works in the public domain. For example, photographs of art works in the public domain. While legally permissible, this practice is an appropriation of the public domain imo.
Obviously - I can’t speak to Carol Highsmith’s intentions with donating “copyright free access” to the Library of Congress - but nonetheless a fascinating example of how complex copyright can be.
I agree with you Gunther. One week goes in grappling with technology and some technicalities and understanding words like toot!
Greetings @sushama
Familiarising yourself with the digital tools for learning on the internet can be daunting at first - you are not alone. However, take one step at a time and you will succeed. Your perseverance will be rewarded and with your new skills, a world of online learning is opened for you!
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Were the lawyers for the plaintiff overly ambitious?
It is an intriguing case because the claim for damages seems a tad high. The eventual court interpretation on public domain was quite straightforward though.
I wonder if “in the public domain” and “No known restrictions on publication” are not mutually exclusive.
In LoC’s Individual Rights and Restrictions Statement, Carol Highsmith’s photographs “are in the public domain” and not “No known restrictions on publication” (as recorded for other donors/contributors, as the case may be):
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/res/482_high.html
https://www.loc.gov/rr/print/195_copr.html#maybe
The catalog records specify “No known restrictions on publication” as a rights advisory:
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014632547/
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Hii Wayne, the following question has been bothering me for a while. I understand that under civil law, a work may not need to be fixed in a tangible medium of expression in order to qualify for copyright protection. If that is correct, what non-tangible medium might be involved, and how does a copyright holder prosecute for infringement – without the physical evidence?
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Hi @eanlee,
That’s an interesting and rather technical question. Bear in mind, I am not a copyright lawyer, so for a definitive answer - best to consult a legal professional.
As far as I know, the Berne Convention (minimum requirements for signatories) specifies that copyright protection applies to works fixed in a tangible form, but the formulation of the article in the Convention provides flexibility for nations to define which works are protected. The specific article reads as follows:
The convention states that it “shall be a matter for legislation in the countries of the Union to prescribe that works in general or any specified categories of works shall not be protected unless they have been fixed in some material form.”
This means that nations can apply copyright protections to other works that are not fixed in a tangible form, for example live public performances (Theater or Music)
This article authored by Elizabeth White, The Berne Convention’s Flexible Fixation Requirement: A Problematic Provision for User-Generated Content provides interesting reading.
Challenging and interesting question - but for the purposes of current and future LiDA103 learners, we are not expecting this level of legal interpretation 
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Hi @mackiwg
Thank you immensely for sharing article by Elizabeth White who discusses the needs for the international community to adopt a uniform fixation standard.
It is an instructive research piece. I highly recommend it to those interested in learning about the implications concerning the condition of ‘fixation’, and the lack of protection in the Berne Convention for contemporary content such as online updates, posts, blog pages, and tweets that are posted, edited and deleted transiently and not archived in stored formats.
I read the article in one go. It was well written, and offers clarity with a prose that makes the issues easy to understand. I can see why the fixation requirement is fundamental to copyright. She suggests that a uniform standard will facilitate proof of fixation. Now, my curiosity about the rationale for the Convention’s flexible fixation requirement is piqued.
Thanks for the support in my pursuit of knowledge on the subject matter.
Hello, I have been creating some short videos at work for our student support website. I have sourced and added a music soundtrack which I found from this website https://freemusicarchive.org/ (which I found through the LiDA104 course). The songs are all licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND licence but to use them I need to cut the end of the song to fit the video duration. My question is: Is cutting the end of a song but not changing it otherwise go against the No derivatives licence?
I found this information on the CC website that makes me wonder,
"Can I reuse an excerpt of a larger work that is licensed with the NoDerivs restriction?
The NoDerivs licenses (BY-ND and BY-NC-ND) prohibit reusers from creating adaptations. What constitutes an adaptation, otherwise known as a derivative work, varies slightly based on the law of the relevant jurisdiction.
Incorporating an unaltered excerpt from an ND-licensed work into a larger work only creates an adaptation if the larger work can be said to be built upon and derived from the work from which the excerpt was taken. Generally, no derivative work is made of the original from which the excerpt was taken when the excerpt is used to illuminate an idea or provide an example in another larger work. Instead, only the reproduction right of the original copyright holder is being exercised by person reusing the excerpt. All CC licenses grant the right to reproduce a CC-licensed work for noncommercial purposes (at a minimum). For example, a person could make copies of one chapter of an ND-licensed book and not be in violation of the license so long as other conditions of the license are met.
There are exceptions to that general rule, however, when the excerpts are combined with other material in a way that creates some new version of the original from which the excerpt is taken. For example, if a portion of a song was used as part of a new song, that may rise to the level of creating an adaptation of the original song, even though only a portion of it was used and even if that portion was used as-is."
Thanks in advance, Emma
Hi @emmarae
Good question. Embedding an audio track within a video is technically a derivative work, even if you’re not altering the soundtrack. Consulting the Free Music Archive license guide concurs - they state that:
"You cannot put this song in a video or other derivative work. … Syncing a track to video/moving images constitutes a derivative work, which is prohibited by this license.
Not the answer you’re looking for, but good that you checked in advance.
Thanks for the answer @mackiwg, sigh, I shall have to re-edit them then. My thought is that it would be helpful if you could search by license on the website then, or by the intended use, as I can imagine this is a common thing to be searching for.
Unfortunately, not all websites that host CC licensed materials support searching by CC license type 
.
Have you tried using advanced search techniques where you search by license type restricting the search to the Free Music Archive site?
Further investigation
On further investigation, I see that the site provides a filter to search by CC license type. That will make things easier.