What is Creative Commons?
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that promotes the sharing of knowledge and resources. The organization offers free licensing tools for works in an effort to increase the sharing & re-using of materials with a "some rights reserved" approach to licensing. Through their affiliate organizations Creative Commons works to promote their mission of sharing. This allows further distribution and sharing of the materials, while creators are still able to maintain copyright of their work.
Please note: These resources often include a terms of use statement, listing conditions for using the material.
Check out the Creative Commons FAQ for more information.
Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools strike a balance within the traditional “all rights reserved” landscape that copyright law often creates. These tools provide everyone from individuals, institutions, or even large companies with a legal and easy to use way to grant copyright permissions to their creative works.
Also provided are tools that license works for the public domain. These allow licensors to waive all rights to their works if desired.
You can also contact the SMU Copyright Office at copyright@smu.ca.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
When the term of copyright protection ends or expires, works fall into the public domain. Prior to December 30, 2022 Canadian copyright lasted for 50 years past the death of the creator, at which time the copyright normally shifted into the public domain. Bill C-19 extended the term of copyright protection from 50 to 70 years after the life of the author. This was not retroactively applied, which means that works that were in the public domain as of December 30, 2022 are not affected by this change.
A work in the public domain can often be copied, used, or modified in any way for academic purposes without asking for permission or payment of royalties. Please remember to check with the Copyright Office if you are uncertain about the status of a particular work. This does not mean you can quote from the work without providing a proper citation! All the rules about plagiarism and academic integrity still apply to works in the public domain.
Looking for materials in the Public Domain? Check out these resources!
Project Gutenberg - Over 42,000 free eBooks.
Public Domain Music - Music & Lyrics published before 1922 in the United States
Librivox - Free public domain audiobooks
Wikimedia Commons - is a media file repository making available public domain and freely-licensed educational media content
Nick Shockey and Jonathan Eisen of PHD Comics take us through the world of open access publishing and explain just what it's all about.
PHD Comics (2012, October 25). Open Access Explained! [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/L5rVH1KGBCY?si=PorbAOluLANB8E-j
For more information on Open Access you can check out our resource guides below.
Open Access Guide - A guide for students, faculty, & researchers at Saint Mary's University
Open Textbooks - A Guide to Finding & Using Open Textbooks
As defined by the Canadian Association of Research libraries, Open Educational Resources (OER) are free to use and openly licensed teaching and learning materials. As stated by leading open education proponent David Wiley, ‘open content’ describes a copyrightable work that is licensed in a way that provides users with free and perpetual permission to engage in the 5R activities which are retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute.
UNESCO. (2021, October 22). Open Educational Resources Concept: What is an OER? [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch v=EImihZVE0sA
CARL-ABRC Code of Best Practice for Fair Dealing for Open Educational Resources: This document explores the legal and practical application of fair dealing in the context of Open Educational Resource (OER) creation in Canada.
Atlantic OER: Founded by CAAL-CBPA, AtlanticOER is a service that supports the hosting and creation of open educational resources by educators and students in the Atlantic provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island.
Open Textbooks - A SMU LibGuide to Finding & Using Open Textbooks
