Finding and Using Openly Licensed Content in your Work

This semester, we are going to be building projects that you have the option of making public. You will likely want to incorporate compelling text, images, video, and even audio content, but it’s unlikely you will create all of this content on your own. Creative commons licenses, which have been around since 2002, have enabled millions of creators to license their work so you can incorporate it into your own work (watch the video to the right for more details on how this works). This page is designed to guide you through the process of finding, reproducing, and even adapting creative content made by others into your own work.

Before We Begin: Citations and Attribution Statements

The first thing to understand is that creative commons licenses are used by educators, but the licenses were not designed primarily for educators. This means that many guides to using openly licensed materials talk about the importance of attribution, but don’t talk about the importance of citations (essential in the realm of academic work). This short presentation clarifies what these two methods of credit are and how they overlap.

Preparation: How will you keep track of the resources you find?

You hopefully already have a way of keeping track of sources you find during your research. Use this same strategy when searching for openly licensed content, just remember to also grab the URL for the creator of the content, the URL where you downloaded the content, and the license applied to that content. This will be necessary as you prepare attribution statements. If you’re already using Zotero, you’ll be delighted to learn that one of the fields for every item type is “rights” so you can keep track of the license for all of the things you find as you search.

via GIPHY

A Clarification: Using Copyrighted Content under Fair Use

[Need to explain here how you can upload images, clips of songs, or clips of films if your purpose is to offer commentary on those things]

Step 1: Find Openly-Licensed Resources for your Project

Images

You might want to try Flickr, OpenVerse, or an Image Search with Google or Duck Duck Go. All of these search results can be filtered to help you find images with a particular license. Note that Google may occasionally show a result that is not actually openly licensed. I describe strategies for finding just the right image for your project in the video to the right.

Text

It’s much more common to incorporate openly licensed images into your work, but it is possible to incorporate text written by someone else. To find text that can be used in this way, browse any article on Wikipedia (all Wikipedia articles are licensed under CC-BY-SA), or you can try to find textbooks or educational websites using tools like the Open Textbook Library, the OASIS OER Search Tool, or the Iowa State University OER LibGuide.

Video

Beyond searching for videos in Google, you should also try searching within the platforms that you think you will likely find relevant content. YouTube and Vimeo are good places to try, and remember to use the advanced filtering tools within each platform’s search interface.

Sound

To find sounds that you can incorporate into your project, select “audio” when doing a search in OpenVerse or check out the Free Music Archive.

Step 2: Reproduce Resources in your Project, with Attribution

Images

When you incorporate an image alongside the text of your project, you should include a caption below the image that includes an attribution statement. To craft an attribution statement, follow the guidance here. If you use the image in a context where captions are not possible (if it is included in the homepage design on your website, for example, or if you use it as a featured image that doesn’t display a caption), you can create a section at the bottom of your page or a separate page on your website to compile the attribution information about those images. Note that you can include copyrighted images if you are offering commentary on that image in your post because of the fair use limitation on copyright. You still need to include an attribution statement making it clear who holds the copyright (I typically add “all rights reserved” after the name of the copyright holder).

Text

If you want to reproduce a complete section (a chapter, a section of a chapter, a paragraph) of an openly licensed work, you can create an attribution statement that you include as you introduce this material. In this context, the attribution statement occurs right as you would typically be introducing a source you are quoting or paraphrasing. You can see how I do this on “The Art of Citation, The Art of Adaptation.”

Video and Sound

The best way to reproduce video and audio content that you don’t want to adapt on your webpage is to embed content that is already published on a streaming site. When you embed, the attribution is already handled because you are not technically reproducing the audio file. The embedded content points people to the place where it was published originally. Through the magic of embedding, we don’t actually have to leave this page to watch or hear it.

Step 3: Adapt/Remix Resources for your Project, Licensing Your Adaptation

Images

If you don’t already have experience editing images, I encourage you to experiment first by uploading the image you want to adapt to canva and playing around with that free tool. If your image will be incorporated with a caption that communicates the full license, you can compose your caption in a separate document. If there is no space for a caption, you can incorporate your license into the image. [definitely need a short video for this]

Text

If you find a text that is licensed CC-BY, CC-BY-NC, CC-BY-SA, or CC-BY-NC-SA (essentially, anything without an ND in the license) the person who created the text has give you permission to adapt it in whatever way you would like. This means you can make a copy of this text and make any changes you want to it without keeping track of exactly where those changes happened! Whoa. The only thing you need to do is include a clear attribution statement on the page. [definitely need a short video for this]

Video

If you manage to find a video that has a creative commons license (that is, there is no “ND” in the license) and you can find the actual video file, you can remix that video using video editing software like iMovie (included with all Apple computers) or DaVinci resolve (free software). If you haven’t edited a video file before, I encourage you to search for instructional resources online and experiment. It can be really fun!

Sound

If you manage to find a podcast that has a creative commons license that allows derivatives (that is, there is no “ND” in the license) and you can find the actual audio file, you can remix that audio file using audio editing software like GarageBand (included with all Apple computers) or Audacity (free software). As with video editing, there is a learning curve. But it’s worth the investment of time!

Step 4: Share your work (or keep it private)

Now that you have taken care to provide attribution for all of the work you’ve incorporated into your project, you are ready to decide how you will share your overall project. You have many options, but you will be limited by the license on the works you have included.

Keep Your Work Private

It is absolutely possible to create digital work that remains visible only to you and me, the instructor. If you would like to do this in OpenLab, you can change your post visibility to “private” as you see below:

Switch the post visibility to “Private”

All Rights Reserved

This is the default for content that you make public on our course website

It’s worth noting that you retain your rights when publishing work on our course website, but this is not the case on all web platforms. If you publish your content on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or another social media platform, you should review their terms of service to understand your rights as a creator.

In most cases, the terms of service on social media platforms explain that by publishing on the platform you grant the company a “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license” to do anything they would like with your content, though you retain your copyright.

Select A Creative Commons License

If you want to share your work with a creative commons license, follow the instructions on the Creative Commons website.