Creative Commons and how it helps us share digital content (YouTube, 5m30s) explains how to share downloaded digital content legally using Creative Commons licences.
Creative Commons provides free copyright licences to offer a simple and standardised way to give permission to share and use creative works.
The four different licence elements are:
Attribution: You must always provide credit to the original author - BY
Share-Alike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same licence as the original - SA
Non-Commercial: You may not use the material for commercial purposes - NC
No-Derivatives: You may not distribute modified versions of the work - ND
For Open Educational Resources (OERs), try to use Creative Commons material with:
Both these licences permit commercial use. If you are creating an open course or MOOC, that later is commercialised, you can still use the resources if they have a BY or BY SA licence.
Image by creativecommons.org [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
You must acknowledge the creator and include any copyright information when you use a resource.
The basic requirements are:
Note: We don't recommend using any materials licensed CC BY 2.0 as it has been superseded and has strict attribution requirements that can make it easy to make a mistake. Materials licensed CC BY 4.0 are preferred.
There are useful tools to guide you through the process of creating and using OER.