Free content, or
free
information, is any kind of functional work,
artwork, or other creative
content having no significant
legal restriction relative to people's freedom
to use, distribute copies, modify, and to distribute derived works
of the content. It is distinct from
open
content in that it can be modified, whereas one might not have
that ability with content that is simply "open" and not
"free".
Free content encompasses all works in the
public domain and also those
copyrighted works whose
licenses honor and uphold the freedoms mentioned
above. Because copyright law in most countries by default grants
copyright holders
monopolistic control over
their creations, copyrighted content must be explicitly declared
free, usually by the referencing or inclusion of licensing
statements from within the work.
Though a work which is in the public domain because its copyright
has expired is considered free, it can become non-free again with
all its derivatives becoming non-free or illegal, if the copyright
law changes.
Legality
Traditional copyright
Traditionally, copyright is a legal concept, which grants the
author or creator of a work, legal rights to control the
duplication and
public
performance of their work. In many jurisdictions this is
limited by a time period after which the works then enter the
public domain. During the time period
of copyright the author's work may only be copied, modified, or
publicly performed with the consent of the author, unless the use
is a
fair use.
Traditional copyright control, when compared to free content, is
limiting in several ways. It limits the use of the work of the
author to those who can, or are willing to, afford the payment of
royalties to the author for usage of the authors content, or limit
their use to fair use. Secondly it limits the use of content whose
author cannot be found. Finally it creates a perceived barrier
between authors by limiting derivative works, such as
mashups and collaborative content. Copyleft is based
on the belief that the temporary publishing monopoly that
traditional copyright created in order to encourage science and
learning is not actually the best way to promote science and
learning.
Public domain
The public domain is a range of creative works whose
copyright has expired, or was never established;
as well as ideas and facts which are ineligible for copyright. A
public domain work is a work whose author has either relinquished
to the public, or no longer can claim control over, the
distribution and usage of the work. As such any person may
manipulate, distribute, or otherwise utilize the work, without
legal ramifications. A work released into the public domain, or
under a very liberal license, by its author may be referred to as
"
copycenter".
Copyleft
Copyleft is a play on the word copyright and describes the practice
of using copyright law to remove restrictions on distributing
copies and modified versions of a work. The aim of copyleft is to
use the legal framework of copyright to enable non-author parties
to be able to reuse and, in many licensing schemes, modify content
that is created by an author. Unlike public domain or other
non-copyleft free work, the author still maintains copyright over
the material, however the author has granted a non-exclusive
license to any person to distribute, and often modify, the work.
Copyleft licenses require that any
derivative works be distributed under the
same terms, and that the original copyright notices be
maintained.
A symbol commonly associated with copyleft is a reversal of the
copyright symbol, facing the other
way; the opening of the C points left rather than right. Unlike the
copyright symbol, the copyleft symbol does not have a codified
meaning.
Usage
Projects that provide free content exist in several areas of
interest, such as software, academic literature, general
literature, music, images, video, and
engineering.
Technology has reduced the cost of publication and reduced the
entry barrier sufficiently to allow for the production of widely
disseminated materials by individuals or small groups. Projects to
provide free literature and multimedia content have become
increasingly prominent owing to the ease of dissemination of
materials that is associated with the development of computer
technology. Such dissemination may have been too costly prior to
these technological developments.
Media
In media, which includes textual, audio, and visual content, free
licensing schemes such as some of the licenses made by
Creative Commons have allowed for the
dissemination of works under a clear set of legal permissions. Not
all of the Creative Commons’ licenses are entirely free: their
permissions may range from very liberal general redistribution and
modification of the work to a more restrictive redistribution-only
licensing. Since February 2008, Creative Commons licenses which are
entirely free carry a badge indicating that they are "approved for
free cultural works".
Repositories
exist which exclusively feature free material provide content such
as photographs,
clip art, music, and
literature.
Software
Free software, often referred to as
open source software, is a
maturing technology with major companies utilising free software to
provide both services and technology to both end users and
technical consumers. The ease of dissemination has allowed for
increased modularity, which allows for smaller groups to contribute
to projects as well as simplifying collaboration.
Open source development models have been classified as having a
similar peer-recognition and collaborative benefit incentives that
are typified by more classical fields such as scientific research,
with the social structures that result from this incentive model
decreasing production cost.
Given sufficient interest in a given software component, by using
peer-to-peer distribution methods,
distribution costs of software may be minimized, removing the
burden of infrastructure maintenance from developers. As
distribution resources are simultaneously provided by consumers,
these software distribution models are scalable, that is the method
is feasible regardless of the number of consumers. In some cases,
free software vendors may use peer-to-peer technology as a method
of dissemination.
Engineering and technology
Free content principles have been translated into fields such as
engineering, where designs and engineering knowledge can be readily
shared and duplicated, in order to reduce overheads associated with
project development.
Open design
principles can be applied in engineering and technological
applications, with projects in
mobile
telephony, small-scale manufacture, the automotive industry,
and even agricultural areas.
Technologies such as distributed manufacturing can allow
computer-aided manufacturing
and
computer-aided design
techniques to be able to develop small-scale production of
components for the development of new, or repair of existing,
devices. Rapid fabrication technologies underpin these
developments, which allow end users of technology to be able to
construct devices from pre-existing blueprints, using software and
manufacturing hardware to convert information into physical
objects.
Academia
In academic work, free works are still a niche phenomenon, owing to
the difficulty of establishing a fully qualified peer review
process. This notwithstanding, authors may see
open access publishing as a method
of expanding the audience that is able to access their work to
allow for greater impact of the publication.
Despite the
difficulties, groups such as the Public Library of Science still
provide capacity for review and publishing of free works, and some
universities, such as the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology
(MIT), have adopted open access publishing by
default. In traditional journals, alternatives such as
delayed free publications or charging researchers for open access
publishing are occasionally used. Some funding agencies require
academic work to be published in the public domain as a grant
requirement.
Open content publication
has been seen as a method of reducing costs associated with
information retrieval in research, as universities typically pay to
subscribe for access to content that is published through
traditional means whilst improving journal quality by discouraging
the submission of research articles of reduced quality.
For teaching purposes, some universities provide freely available
course content, such as lecture notes, video resources and
tutorials. This content is distributed via internet resources to
the general public. Publication of such resources may be either by
a formal institution wide program, or alternately via informal
content provided by individual academics or departments.
Criticism
A subset of free
licenses are sometimes
referred to as
viral copyright
licenses or copyleft licenses. This applies to licenses that
contain a clause stating that any works derived from a free work
must themselves be free when distributed, usually under the same
license. This requirement is criticized as legally constraining and
therefore rendering the use of the "free" appellation
inappropriate. Non-copyleft licenses are often referred to as more
"permissive" licenses.
An example of one of these "
viral
licenses" is the
GNU
General Public License, which is often applied to computer
programs. The viral nature of these licenses are seen as applying
the ideology of the original licensor on subsequent redistributors.
The criticism stems over a disagreement over the scope of freedom
that licenses should attempt to enforce. That is whether licenses
should aim to provide absolute freedom (to do whatever you please)
versus an inalienable freedom (freedom to do anything but take away
the freedom of another).
See also
Footnotes
- The copyright status of uncreative aggregates of basic data may
differ by region, for the USA see Feist Publications
v. Rural Telephone Service, for Australia, see Telstra v Desktop Marketing
Systems
References
- The copyright status of uncreative aggregates of basic data may
differ by region, for the USA see Feist Publications
v. Rural Telephone Service, for Australia, see Telstra v Desktop Marketing
Systems
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