Creative Commons

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Creative Commons (CC) https://creativecommons.org/ licenses are among popular examples of open access sources. The  Creative Commons was founded by Stanford University Law Professor Lawrence Lessig and others who believed in sharing their intellectual  content for free for noncommercial purposes such as personal,  educational, and nonprofit environments. Professor Lessig’s research is  focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright.  Lessig supports fair use in a digital world where these rights appear to  be eroding. He outlines music sampling related to fair use @ https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/copyright-criminals/fair-use.html   The Creative Commons promotes universal access with a “a free, public, and standardized  infrastructure that creates a balance between the reality of the  Internet and the reality of copyright laws.” Not intended as a  substitute for copyright, Creative Commons offers a free registration infrastructure for creators to file a license deed. This permits others  to locate, recognize, and freely use their registered works in exchange  for posting author attribution.     

Attribution (BY): You allow others to use your work but only  if they attribute you in the manner that you request. Attribution is  required for all Creative Commons licenses.
 

Non-Commercial (NC): You allow others to use your work, but  for noncommercial purposes only. This does not mean that works cannot be  used for commercial purposes, but a separate license must be obtained  by a user who wishes to utilize the work commercially.
 

Non Derivative (ND): You allow others to copy, distribute,  display, and perform only verbatim copies of your work, not derivative  works. The right to make adaptations can be licensed with a separate  agreement.
 

Share Alike (SA): You allow others to make derivatives from  your original work but they are allowed to distribute derivative works  only under the same terms as the license of your work, or a license  which is compatible with your terms. SA is used to prevent others from  taking something from the commons and then blocking it with a more  restrictive license.

NOTE:  Creative Commons licenses are based on copyright law, and are thus applicable only to copyrightable works.

Open-access journal/book repositories and indexed databases include the following sites: 

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAL) https://doaj.org/

Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) found at https://doabooks.org/ 

MEDLINE and PubMed https://www.nlm.nih.gov/bsd/pmresources.html 

Science.gov https://www.science.gov/

National Technical Information Service (NTIS) https://www.ntis.gov/

GoogleScholar https://scholar.google.com/ 

Project Gutenberg and Wikimedia Commons are other examples where public domain or open access materials may be  found. Project Gutenberg has provided free full text books since 1971,  while Wikimedia is a media file repository offering public domain and  freely-licensed educational media content (images, sound and video  clips) for all to use for free. Also, the Center for the Study of the Public Domain offers  “research and scholarship on the contributions of the public domain to speech, culture, science and innovation” including, information about the treasure trove of books, music, and movies entering the public domain each year. 

SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) promotes open access to scholarly and scientific research. SPARC is a global coalition committed to making Open the default for research and education. Learn more about SPARC at https://sparcopen.org/open-access/. 

For  additional types of licensing of intellectual properties, see Contracts & Licensing section of this site.