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Open content is the content including audio, articles, pictures, files, and movies which is possible for others to copy and redistribute, or/and content which is produced without any consideration of instant financial reward. Furthermore, there are no closed group such as a commercial publisher has to take the responsibility for all the re-editing. Production within virtual community and the public domain are two possible source of open content (Cedergren 2003). The term open content was inspired by the philosophy of free software. According to Free Software Foundation (2004), free software gives users the freedom to copy, re-produce, change, and improve the software. It refers to four kinds of freedom:
These freedoms encourage people’s creative activities. Similarly, the freedom of editing and recreating the content such as audio and text frees users from the restriction of copyright law in the public domain and leads more thriving creative works. As Creative Commons website (2005) states, “creativity and innovation rely on a rich heritage of prior intellectual endeavor. We stand on the shoulders of giants by revisiting, reusing, and transforming the ideas and works of our peers and predecessors�?. Lin (2004), a writer who is familiar with this issue, gives a good example of the use of open content. He indicates that if Grimm’s Fairy Tales was not the public property in the public domain, then Walt Disney has no rights to produce its first animation Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and other cartoons. Ironically, the company is trying to ‘protect’ its product from being public property.
The open content license is used to codify the specific form or quantity of content which is available for free use, distribution, and improvement. Meanwhile, it also provides for some limitations on how particular content can be used for profit. As there are many kinds of content on the Internet, various licenses which are suited to different content and situation have been made. The following are the more common licenses (Lin 2004):
Under the license, the content which has been changed, edited, or even combined with other works must be legally distributaable, either as same as the orginal work or even less restrictive. The restriction depends upon the license that the origninal work employs.
Creative Commons License
Design Science License
GNU Free Documentation License
Open Publication License
Open Directory Project License
Open Game License
Open Content License
Creative Commons. 2005. Legal Concept. creativecommons.org/about/legal (accessed October 20, 2005).
Lin, C. 2004. Open content and free software. mag.udn.com/mag/dc/storypage.jsp?f_MAIN_ID=2&f_SUB_ID=4&f_ART_ID=4137 (accessed October 20, 2005).
Cedergren, M. 2003. Open content and value creation. www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue8_8/cedergren/ (accessed October 20, 2005).
Free Software Foundation. 2004. The free software definition. www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html (accessed October 15, 2005).
--Chih-Yen Li 15:50, 27 Oct 2005 (EST)
