Free content
As free content (english free content ), also called Open Content refers to content, their free use or redistribution is allowed by copyright. This can apply after the expiry of statutory periods of protection, so that originally protected works are considered to be public domain. Alternatively, content can be described as free, if the author or owner of the full-scale use rights has provided a work under a free license.
The legal structures of open content thus form a supplement to the legal protection of intellectual property. Even free content, provided that they are under a free license, copyrighted. The respective license sets out the conditions which must be observed in using it.
The idea for the creation of free content was similar to the free software.
The terms " content" and " open content "
The term was coined by the Open Content launched by David Wiley Open Content Initiative, which is an open - content license and 1999 Open Publication license introduced in 1998.
The terms " free content " and " open content " are now often equated. There are different " degrees of freedom ", ranging from the right to be named and Copyleft about the permission to change and / or commercial exploitation through to the waiver of any terms of use.
Others, such as freedomdefined.org and opendefinition.org define "free cultural works " or "open knowledge" as content, which may be changed by anyone and used commercially.
The use of open content
Free content is used in the following areas:
- Media, such as text, images, music, movies, animations and models
- Software, see Open Source
- Technology. Using Open hardware and open source are individuals in a position even to produce or enhance products.
- Databases, see Open Data
- Science and teaching, see Open Access
- Policy, see Open Government
- Learning and teaching materials, Open Educational Resources
- Art
Provider of open content
Flickr offers extensive picture material under free Creative Commons licenses, as well as a collection of historic, copyright- free images of the U.S. Library of Congress.
The Federal Agency for Civic Education published some of their publications under a free license. Also, the German Centre for Aerospace and the European Southern Observatory put their pictures and movies free license available.
When " Open Books " are books are called, the texts can be used by anyone free of charge. There may be works where the copyright has expired, but also, for example, to current books, especially in the IT area, which are freely offered.
A further area of open content provide online courses (Open Educational Resources ) represents and various manuals and documentation that have been created for free software.
In addition to those obtained from the Open Access initiative in scientific sector considerable success. There are now over 1168 scientific open-content magazines. However, these contents are often contrary to the principles referred to in the Berlin declaration only accessible, but may not be distributed or modified.
Public Domain content
Older works for which the copyright protection period is expired, which now are therefore in the public domain, provided by digitization in various projects. The Project Gutenberg, for example, provides such content in electronic form.
And some public domain material is available from the American government, as works of their employees are not subject to copyright.
In practice, the principle Public Domain older plants is often limited due to ownership of the single physical drive template (such as the original of an image that is located in a museum), since the necessary for a copy of the original access can be denied.