Pressbooks

Copyright and Your Book

PressbooksEDU is an open access platform, designed for the creation of open educational resources (OER) and other open access ebooks. This means your book must to be made available under an open license. Small portions of your book may be kept private (for instructor use) or password protected in certain cases.

Open access publishing also means the content in your book must be compatible with open access and the license you choose.

Compatible Content

• Any content you create for the book, or have copyright ownership over.
• Content that is under a compatible open license (including most Creative Commons Licenses).
• Content in the Public Domain.
  • The Public Domain describes materials that are no longer under copyright due to age (usually pre-1928) or were never protected by copyright.  Most US Federal government material, such as from the FAA or NASA, are in the Public Domain because they cannot be copyrighted.  Content that is free online is not the same as being in the Public Domain. 
• Content that you have permission to use from the copyright holder.
  • The license you choose for your book is not automatically applied to content with another license, or that you have permission to use. Although you have permission to use it in your book, you should label copyrighted content to warn other users it is not available for reuse or modification.
• Fair Use Content.
  • Fair Use in copyright allows limited uses of copyrighted materials without needing permission.  These uses are usually small portions of the work, or use the work in a highly productive/transformative way. 
  • Fair Use cases should be well thought out. For guidance on how Fair Use is determined and help documenting your argument, read our short Fair Use guide or contact commons@erau.edu.

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons (CC) licenses are designed to make it clear what users can and cannot do with your work. CC licenses are the most common licenses used for Open Educational Resources.

Creative Commons does not replace copyright but compliments it. Copyright owners keep their rights but give the public permission to use their work in certain ways. Unlike most licenses, Creative Commons allows for fair use and other legal exemptions. If users want to do something that the license (or fair use) doesn't allow, they can still ask for your permission on a case-by-case basis. For more information, see our Creative Commons Breakdown.

Currently, we do not require that you use a particular CC license for your work. However, if you modify and use materials under a ShareALike (SA) license, you may be required to use a compatible license for your work.

The Licenses

There are seven CC licenses: six "core" licenses and a public domain license.  The main licenses are all a combination of four conditions:

• Attribution: You must give credit to the creator of the work. When giving credit you should give the title, author, source, and license (known as the TASL framework). For examples and more information, see Creative Commons' best practices for attribution.
• NonCommerical: You may use the work for any purpose except to make a profit or gain commercial advantage.
• ShareAlike: If you change or modify the original work, you must distribute the work under the same terms.
• NoDeriviatives: You can copy, distribute, display, or perform the work, but you cannot make changes to it.

CC Licenses Explained

Icon	Name	Abbreviation	Explanation
	Attribution	CC - BY	You have to give credit. You can copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify however you want.
	Attribution - ShareAlike	CC-BY-SA	You have to give credit. You can copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify the work.  Any new works you create by changing this work must be shared under the same license or a license with the same terms.
	Attribution - NoDerivatives	CC-BY-ND	You have to give credit. You can copy, distribute, display, and perform the work. You cannot make changes to this work.
	Attribution - NonCommerical	CC-BY-NC	You have to give credit. You can copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify the work as long as you are not making a profit or gaining a commercial advantage.
	Attribution - NonCommerical - ShareAlike	CC-BY-NC-SA	You have to give credit. You can copy, distribute, display, perform, and modify the work as long as you are not making a profit or gaining a commercial advantage. Any new works you create must be shared under the same license or a license with the same terms.
	Attribution - NonCommerical - NoDerivatives	CC-BY-NC-ND	You have to give credit. You can copy, distribute, display, and perform the work as long as you are not making a profit or gaining a commercial advantage. You cannot make changes to this work.
	Creative Commons Zero	CC0	The creator is putting the work into the public domain.  No credit is required. You can use it in any way you want.

Need Help?

If you need help with general information about Creative Commons licenses and copyrighted materials, contact commons@erau.edu. This includes helping identify if material you want to use is openly available or not, although we cannot provide definitive legal guidance.

Templates for tracking copyrighted material in your book (particularly images and figures) are available if needed.

Additional Resources