Licensing

  This page is monitored by the OLPC team.

NOTE: The contents of this page are not set in stone, and are subject to change! This page is a draft in active flux ... Please leave suggestions on the talk page.

This page covers licensing and copyright issues as they pertain to the One Laptop per Child project.

For those already familiar with open licenses, our advice is:

• Are you writing code for an end-user application? Use the GPL.
• Are you writing a code library? Use the LGPL or MIT license.
• Are you creating something else? Release your work into the public domain with the CC-PD declaration. If you can't do that, use CC-BY.

For a succinct introduction to open licensing, see the Open Knowledge Foundation's Guide to open licensing.

For a list of open licenses and information on how to apply them, see their licenses page.

OLPC is a strong advocate for and practitioner of open licensing, as the project is designed around the idea of the free sharing of knowledge. Our goal is to empower children to share and build on what they learn in every way imaginable. There should be no barriers to children who wish to recreate and build on the materials, software, and tools they are given; everyone should be free to use, redistribute, and produce modified version of and works derived from these things. For more on OLPC's specific views on this, see the OLPC on open source software and OLPC on free knowledge sections.

License setting on the XO

There are a few points of intervention where one can set license defaults and licenses for material created on an XO. One: a setup menu, which will offer controls of system-wide defaults including default license across activities. Another: in the Journal, when viewing and searching for materials. A third is via a choose from within the context of each activity -- this could be a service that drops down on a certain keystroke.

Customizable defaults : what the default license is, and what licenses are available 'above the fold' and show up when the small license chooser appears. These could be varied by country-build according to national standards.

The metadata used by default is under discussion.

License translations and summaries

We need to begin collecting descriptions of licenses that are on the XOs so that children can understand the licenses, or at least the ideas behind the licenses. This is a hard problem. This section exist to help get this process started and will provide an overview of licensing, translating, and internationalization of licenses the ideas behind them. The set of licenses that we could be discussing may be quite large, ranging from public domain, free software licenses, free cultural works licenses, Creative Commons licenses, and many others. Ideas behind these licenses range from sharing and ownership to copyright and copyleft.

Summaries on the XO

We need to begin collecting summaries of licenses and short descriptions of the ideas behind the licenses and related concepts. The idea being that we want children and other users of the XO to understand, if not the details of the license of itself, then the basic idea behind the license and what it means. This will involve writing in such a way that can be understood across languages and cultures and that can then be translated easily. A possible model that could be followed for writing style could be the Simple English Wikipedia project. Their statement of purpose is:

"Articles in the Simple English Wikipedia use fewer words and easier grammar than the original English Wikipedia. The Simple English Wikipedia is also for people with different needs, such as students, children, adults with learning difficulties and people who are trying to learn English. Other people use the Simple English Wikipedia because its simple language helps them to understand unfamiliar topics or complex ideas." [1].

However, one must keep in mind that the rewriting of an idea into a simpler form of language is itself a kind of translation. As such, keeping the balance between style, language, and accuracy of meaning is difficult. This may be especially difficult when targetting specific licenses, such as the GNU General Public Licenses, or the various Creative Commons licenses, which themselves struggle with subtlety of language and ideas.

GNU Kids

For the ideas of Free Software and the GNU licenses it may be useful to leverage the interest of the Free Software Foundation in starting a GNU Kids project.

Creative Commons

For getting descriptions of creative commons licenses it may be useful to reach out to those part of the CC international work, which is attempting to port the licenses to various countries and to translate the licenses ot many languages.

The General Problem

To convey the ideas behind these licenses, their purpose, and the ideas behind them is a difficult task in and of itself. Further, recommending how to actually choose and use a license is yet another task, as adding a copyright license (or End User License Agreement) to your work is often non-trivial in and of itself and may vary across the specific type of license. Lastly it is not the problem of a single discussion, but rather many discussion that will vary across age groups, education levels, languages, cultures, and legal jurisdictions.

Translation

A license can be translated into another language officially or unofficially. An official translation of a license may or may not retain the same legal meaning across translations due to the complexities of language.

Internationalization

The translation of a license is distinct from the internationalization of a license, in that you needn't translate a license into another language for it to be more applicable across jurisdictions. One approach to internationalization is to adhere to the language of treaties. In drafting version three of the Creative Commons licenses, they discuss such an approach:

"The new license relies on the language of the [http://wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/ Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Work], the Rome Convention of 1961, the WIPO Copyright Treaty of 1996, the WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty of 1996 and the Universal Copyright Convention. Because treaties are matters of international agreement between countries and, as a general rule, require adoption into national law to be effective in a particular country, simply basing the license wording on these treaties is not, of itself, sufficient. Consequently, clause 8(f) of the new generic specifically provides that the license takes effect according to the corresponding provisions of the implementation of those treaty provisions in the applicable national law."

Porting

The porting of a copyright license is a complete rewrite of a license to meet the legal code of a specific jurisdiction. Therefore, a port is neither a translation nor a process of internationalization of a license, but merely the creation of a license with the same or similar idea behind it. The reason the idea may be different across different jurisdictions is because there is no universal idea of copyright or copyright law, therefore both the license and the intent of a license may vary from country to country and from culture to culture.

Collective Effort

To begin explaining these ideas will take the effort of many people from many cultures and areas. Any one organization such as the Creative Commons or the Free Software Foundation that writes licenses and espouses an idea behind the licenses will likely not be well suited to lead such an effort, since there may be conflicting goals amongst the various license authors. An outside organization or collective effort such as an outside web page may make sense in the future and could make a good discussion for those wanting to take up this issue.

Q and A on licensing contributed for the purposes of OLPC content

Contributing content

Q1. I would like to contribute pieces of my work to OLPC, in order to use them incorporated into the XOs and school servers, which are going to be distributed to children in the emerging world. What should I do?

A1. OLPC is always looking to expand its content repositories with new ideas on quality educational content that could be included on the XOs or the school servers.

For more information on the process of contributing content to OLPC, please see the sections of “How to contribute” and “Submitting Your Content to OLPC” available at: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributing_content#Submitting_Your_Content_to_OLPC.

Q2. What forms of work I could contribute to OLPC?

A2. We are particularly interested in materials that are produced specially for children and teachers; designed for ease of localization, customization, and other reuse; available in many languages; and available under a free content license. Materials can include the following:

• Texts – stories and poems; textbooks, workbooks, how-tos and lab manuals;
• Reference works – encyclopedias, dictionaries, maps and atlases;
• Images – symbols and fonts, blueprints, sketches, photographs and art;
• Multimedia content – animations, audio books, songs and audio recordings, videos;
• Software – games, tools, scripts, simulations, self-assessments and interactive tools.

For more information, please review the section of Content Ideas available at: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Contributing_content#Content_Ideas

Copyright and OLPC

Q3. How does the international perspective of the content affect the licensing schemes, represented by OLPC?

A3. XOs are going to be deployed all over the world and in several jurisdictions. Each country has its own laws and regulations governing the distribution of content materials. Thus, there is a strong interest on behalf of OLPC to distribute educational content with proper attributions to its contributors, according to the licensing schemes, which OLPC represents, and to the rules and regulations of the countries, in which the XOs are delivered.

Q4. What can be considered as a copyrightable work?

A4. Copyright refers to a wide array of works, which includes poems; plays; theses; paintings; drawings; movies; musical compositions; photographs; software; and other literary and artistic works. It covers only the form or the manner in which ideas are manifested and not the idea that is incorporated by itself.

In addition, protection under copyright law is only provided to “original works of authorship.” However, the requirements of originality are generally low. Additionally, different countries impose different standards and tests of originality.

Q5. Which are some of the indicative categories of copyrightable works?

A5. The U.S. Copyright Act includes an illustrative list of the works, which can be protected by copyright laws.

This list includes:

• Literary works; that is, works other than audiovisual works expressed in words, numbers, other verbal or numerical symbols or indicia, regardless of the note of the material objects, such as books, periodicals, manuscripts, phonorecords, films, tapes, disks, cards, in which they are embodied. These works include computer databases and computer programs to the extent they incorporate authorship in the programmer’s expression of original ideas as distinguished from the ideas themselves.
• Pictorial and graphic works; that is, two-dimensional and three-dimensional works of fine, graphic and applied art, prints and art reproductions, maps, globes, charts, diagrams, models and technical drawings;
• Musical works and sound recordings; in particular, owners of a musical composition enjoy the full complement of rights, whereas sound recordings do not receive a traditional performance right (however, they now have a digital performance right). Musical works can be written on paper and pressed onto a phonorecord, recorded on audiotape, or otherwise fixed in a tangible medium of expression.
• Motion pictures and audiovisual works; that is, series of related images which are intrinsically intended to be shown by the use of machines or devices, such as projectors, viewers, or electronic equipment together with accompanying sounds, if any, regardless of the nature of material objects, such as films or tapes, in which the works are embodied.

Q6. What is defined as a joint, a collective and a derivative work? Why are these kinds of works important in our case?

A6. The creation and use of joint, derivative and collective works is especially important for OLPC, as it embodies the significance of collaboration, sharing and continuity in education.

A joint work is a work prepared by two or more authors with the intention that their contribution be merged into inseparable or interdependent part of a unitary whole.

A collective work, according to the Creative Commons licenses, which OLPC is implementing, means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or encyclopedia, in which the work in its entirety in unmodified form, along with one or more other contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes a collective work will not be considered a derivative work (as defined below) for the purposes of a Creative Commons license.

A derivative work, according to the CC licenses, means a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which the original work may be recast, transformed, or adapted.

Q7. What is OLPC’s position regarding the copyright and licensing protection of the works incorporated into the XOs and the school servers?

A6. OLPC strongly supports open licensing, as free content policy is pertinent to its mission to enable children’s access to knowledge without barriers by enabling them to share freely the materials and tools they are given.

Therefore, regarding materials, such as texts, reference works, multimedia content, or images, OLPC suggests to its contributors to make their works available to OLPC with a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution or Attribution – Share-alike licenses (CC 3.0 BY or CC 3.0 BY-SA).

Licensing appendix

Q7. What are the Creative Commons BY and BY-SA licenses?

A7. Citing the Creative Commons’ website:

• a Creative Commons Attribution license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon your work, as long as they credit you for the original creation.
• a Creative Commons Attribution – Share-alike license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon your work, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.

Creative Commons apply to works that are protected by copyright. They give you the ability to “dictate how others may exercise your rights on the work” – such as, for example, the right to copy, to make derivative works or adaptations or to distribute your work. For that reason, they come attached to your work and authorize everyone who comes in contact with the work to use it consistent with the license.

Creative Commons licenses are all non-exclusive licenses. This means that you can permit licensees to use your work under a Creative Commons license and then enter into a separate and different non-exclusive license with someone else, even under different than the CC license terms.

Q8. What are not the Creative Commons BY and BY-SA licenses?

A8. Creative Commons licenses do not apply to things such as ideas, factual information or other things that are not protected by copyright. The case of non-protected by copyright works varies in different jurisdictions.

Furthermore, they do not give you the ability to restrict anything that is otherwise permitted by exceptions or limitations to copyright – as, for example, fair use – nor they give you the ability to control anything that is not protected by copyright law, such as facts and ideas, as we described above.

More information about questions 7 and 8 and the use of Creative Commons licenses, please see http://wiki.creativecommons.org/FAQ#What_things_should_I_think_about_before_I_apply_a_Creative_Commons_license_to_my_work.3F.

Q9. How do Creative Commons 3.0 BY and BY-SA licenses apply in the OLPC case?

A9. Consistent with the open source policy of OLPC and the mission to enable the most expansive use and sharing of knowledge worldwide, Creative Commons Attribution and Attribution – Share-alike licenses enhance the ability of OLPC to succeed in these goals by giving to both OLPC and children - the users of the XOs – the benefit to the greatest extent from the educational value of its content. Creative Commons licenses let the users copy and distribute the materials, as well as create upon them, by making translations, adaptations or other innovative uses of them.

Q10. How can you use the Creative Commons licenses in the OLPC case? What is the process you should meet?

A10. Before applying a Creative Commons 3.0 BY or BY-SA, first of all, please make sure that you have the authority to license the work.

This means that you should be the owner of the work. Ownership of copyrighted works is governed differently in each jurisdiction. Mainly, you should make sure, if you are the sole author of the work, that there are no agreements (i.e. as an employee, et cetera) posing restrictions on the way you can use your rights on the work.

On the other hand, if you combined pre-existing works (i.e. texts, photographs, paintings, sketches, poems, stories, etc.) in your work or you jointly produced the work with others, you need to make sure you have the express and explicit permission to apply a Creative Commons license to the end result.

In addition, you should particularly define what you are CC-licensing, in terms of the work itself, its format, as well as its elements.

More information regarding the use of CC licenses you can find available at: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Before_Licensing.

Q11. Where can I find forms that I could use in order to submit my works, certifying that I am licensing them to OLPC according to CC 3.0 BY or CC 3.0 BY-SA?

A11. Below you can find sample generic forms that you should submit to OLPC along with the submission of your content, which certify that you are licensing to OLPC your works for use, according to the purposes of OLPC and the Creative Commons 3.0 BY or BY-SA licenses:

• Form for CC 3.0 BY
• Form for CC 3.0 3.0 BY-SA

See also

• Contributing content
• Content#On free knowledge