SUNY Empire Copyright Information Website: Putting Your Work into the Creative Commons

You can only put something into the Creative Commons if you are the copyright owner. 

Is the information copyrightable?

Did some originality and creativity go into it, and is it recorded in some fashion?

• raw data or a list can't be copyrighted
• spoken word or performance can't be copyrighted unless it's written down or recorded somehow
• ideas can't be copyrighted
• technological designs and processes can't be copyrighted (that's patent law, very different)
• logos and phrases aren't copyrighted (that's trademark law, very different)
• an ingredient or process that you want to keep exclusive to your product can't be copyrighted (that's trade secret law, VERY different)

No matter what the subject matter or medium, everything else is copyrightable.

Are you sure it's not somebody else's copyright?

Only the copyright owner may put a work into the Creative Commons. If someone else does, the author may sue to remove it. 

• If you created a work for hire, whoever paid for the creation of specific content through a contract is the owner of the copyright. If you are creating content as a volunteer, then before you begin, you should come to an agreement in writing about who will own the copyright of the work and what rights any other parties may have to it.. 
• If you are a SUNY Empire employee who is creating web copy, catalog contents, bylaws - basically anything that is not your scholarship or academic content, and is for the purpose of carrying out college operations, then what you're creating is a work for hire. The copyright belongs to the college. However, if your supervisor gives you permission, you may put it into the Creative Commons. Whether the author is SUNY Empire or the employee who created the content will be decided between the employee and their supervisor. 
• If you are a SUNY Empire faculty member who is doing your own scholarship, then you own the copyright. It doesn't matter if you worked on it during your regular hours or used college resources - you own the copyright of your scholarship, whether academic or creative. However, if you have published your work, your author agreement may have transferred the copyright to the journal or publisher.
• If you are a SUNY Empire faculty or instructional designer who is creating a course as part of your regular employment, then you own the copyright of the course content; however, the college retains the perpetual, non-exclusive right to use it and revise it internally, even if you leave the college. 
• If you are a SUNY Empire staff member who is working on a course to support the faculty subject expert, then you do not own the copyright of the content being created. Librarians, educational technologists, secretaries, and instructional designers acting to support a faculty subject expert are not counted as co-authors (this also protects you in case the subject expert, who has final say in what goes into the course, chooses to put something legally risky into the course!)
• If you are creating a course outside your regular employment (as Extra Service or under a specific contract to create certain content) then you will be asked to sign a Letter of Agreement, which makes the content a work for hire, and the college owns the copyright.

Do any copyright co-owners need to be consulted?

The international standard is that all joint copyright owners must consent to any licensing of their shared intellectual property. The United States is an exception. While in the U.S. it is legal to license your shared intellectual property to the Creative Commons without the knowledge or consent of the other copyright holders, it is bad manners, unethical, and likely to discourage people from working with you in the future.

How to determine if joint copyright exists

The U.S. Code (17 U.S.C. §§ 101, 201(a)) makes it clear that if a work had two or more authors who made substantial contributions that they meant to be part of a "unitary whole," then each of those authors is joint owner of the copyright for the entire "unitary whole." A written agreement stating joint ownership of copyright is common, and a good idea, but it is not necessary to establish joint authorship. 

So the writer of an article for an edited volume is not a joint owner of the copyright of the whole volume, while the writer of several chapters of a textbook is probably joint owner of the copyright of the textbook. 

How is authorship determined? If there is a written agreement, that is what determines it. Otherwise, here are some generally agreed-upon criteria:

To be an author (and owner of copyright,) one must:

• Contribute ideas
• Contribute expression
• Contribute substantially in at least one of those areas
• Be accountable for the accuracy and integrity of the work

Some Creative Commons Licenses are incompatible 

These Creative Commons licenses introduce no restrictions

• CC0 - this content is free to use unconditionally.
• CC-BY - this content is free to use as long as it is correctly attributed. Here is how to give attribution.

These licenses restrict what you can do with the end product

• CC-NC - this content cannot be used to make a profit
• CC-SA - this content cannot be used unless the end product is also licensed CC-SA
• CC-ND - this content can be used as is, but cannot be made part of a larger whole or remixed.
• Individual licenses from the copyright holder that specify a particular use or audience cannot be used in any end product that will be in the Creative Commons, unless that sort of unlimited audience and encouragement of derivative works was specifically allowed in the license. 

These licenses cannot be used together

• CC-SA content cannot be used in any end product that is not also licensed CC-SA. 
• CC-NC content cannot be used in any end product that is not also licensed CC-NC. 
• CC-ND content cannot be incorporated into a larger work or remixed at all, so it cannot be combined with any other CC license. 

Is your head swimming? Consult this chart:

"License Compatibility Chart" by CreativeCommons.org is licensed under CC-BY 4.0.

In general, choose the most permissive Creative Commons license you can

You probably want attribution, so ideally, you'll choose CC-BY. It will increase the likelihood that your work will be used and make a difference.

If you're incorporating CC-SA content, you will need to choose CC-BY-SA.

If you're incorporating CC-NC content, you will need to choose CC-BY-NC. 

If you're incorporating licensed copyrighted content, that license might specify which Creative Commons license you're allowed to use. 

If you have co-authors who are hesitant about putting the work in the Creative Commons, you might be able to compromise by using a CC-BY-ND license. It will prevent remixing, but at least it will make the content available.

Even if you know what license you want, use the License Chooser

The Creative Commons License Chooser is a tool that guides you through choosing your license and then generates the HTML and image you will need to use to mark your work with the correct license. 

If you do not mark your work, it is not in the Creative Commons!

• Printed out versions of the work will need the little image and the text that describes the license and its version.
• Documents will need the little image, and that text will need to be a hyperlink to the actual license at creativecommons.org 
• Digital versions of the work need to use the HTML generated by the License Chooser, which will produce the image and hyperlinked license version text. 
• Multimedia works can be marked in any caption or description. If it is possible to mark them inside the work itself (such as a watermark or a frame that displays at the end of a video) then do that too.

Creative Commons licenses are typically displayed in the footer of a work. 

CC.org_cc_by_license.jpg by CreativeCommons.org is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. 

Once you post your work on the Internet with a Creative Commons license, it is there to stay. It can't be recalled or rescinded.

However, you still own the copyright to your work.

• You can still publish, create derivative works, and profit from your work as any copyright owner could.
• You can put out an updated version under a different license, or no license.
• You can still defend your copyright if someone tries to do something with your work that the Creative Commons license doesn't allow.
• You can still grant licenses to people to do things that your Creative Commons license doesn't allow the rest of the public to do.

When defending your copyright, Creative Commons or otherwise, you need to register your copyright with the US Copyright Office before you can take anyone to court. This is done online, and there is a modest fee.