Title: Copyrights and licences
Course: Digivisio DEMO: Planning and creating a MOOC > Section: Creating a MOOC in a virtual learning environment

Copyrights and licences are an important issue when planning a MOOC. This is why you should always look at the learning materials of the course from the author’s and the user’s perspectives. Essentially, the copyright and honour (as well as any fees) for creating the material belong to the author, but the user may wonder how they can process further the information, material, and content they receive. This is why it is worth considering how and under what kind of a licence you put together the material for a MOOC.

In terms of licences, the rule of thumb is usually clear: if you produce commercial or educational materials, make sure that this is allowed by the licence. In NaturalReaders AI audio software, for example, you can select to produce audio material under either a personal or a commercial licence. If you choose a commercial licence, you will be the owner of the audio material as soon as it has been created and you can use it freely for commercial purposes, but under a personal licence this is not possible. The Edu licence of the software enables internal access to the material for a group of users but other distribution of the material is prohibited. You should consequently choose the licence carefully when using the software and never hesitate to turn to the person responsible for licences and software in your higher education institution for advice.

When putting together materials for a MOOC , a good rule of thumb is that the author basically always has a strict copyright to the material. This also applies to the teacher who creates the MOOC in relation to the course and the material produced for it. When using material you did not produce yourself for your MOOC, you should assume that it is subject to the strictest possible copyright. Once you have made this initial assumption, you can follow the steps below to decide if you can use the material as part of your MOOC content.

How do you determine copyrights and the right to use material?

Check the author of the material. Write down the details of the author and the work and in an unclear situation, contact the author if possible.

Check the licence under which the author has produced the material.

Find out what legislation applies to presentation of the work or material in education.

After going through these steps, you should have a reasonable understanding of whether you can use the material as part of your MOOC. However, it is always important to comply with the copyright laws valid at the time and the licence of the work and, in any case, attribute the work to the original author.

 You can use a copyrighted work to a limited extent without permission, however, but checking this is always a good idea. Such exceptional situations include:

- Right to cite: Observing good practice, you may cite works as long as you mention the source. This means that you can quote sections of the material, for example, to enrich learning, as long as good practice is followed.
- Right to copy for private use: You may copy works for your private use or the private use of your family members and close friends, but do not make unlimited copies. Note that this will not work in a MOOC course.
- Expiry of copyright protection: Once copyright protection has expired, works may be used freely.
- Education and research: On certain conditions, works can be used in education and research without the author’s permission. Be careful in these cases, and always try to use material protected under a Public Domain or Creative Commons licence.
- Libraries, archives, and museums: These institutions have the right to use works without permission in certain situations.

When considering materials produced by you and others, you should give some thought to the type of licence under which you create the material. This material was produced to be publicly available in an open learning material service for higher education institutions to aoe.fi. When creating a MOOC and thinking about the further use of materials by learners, you should consider using such as a Creative Commons licence for the material. By selecting different licence types, it is easy to determine how your materials will be protected and how they can be used further and distributed publicly while protecting your copyright. At this point, you should note particularly that the copyright to any content you generate with AI also belongs to you.

Creative Commons licences are public copyright licences that allow free distribution and use of works under certain conditions. The following categories of CC licences are available:

- CC0: The work can be used freely. Part of Public Domain.
- CC BY: The work may be used freely as long as credit is given to the original creator.
- CC BY-SA: The work may be used and edited but edited versions must be distributed under the same licence.
- CC BY-ND: The work may be distributed but not edited.
- CC BY-NC: The work may be used for non-commercial purposes as long as credit is given to the original creator.
- CC BY-NC-SA: The work may be used and edited for non-commercial purposes but the edited versions must be distributed under the same licence.
- CC BY-NC-ND: The work may be distributed for non-commercial purposes but not edited.
- To read more about the licence categories, visit the Creative Commons tools and licences website.

See below for sources of information on open distribution and copyrights. Read the material and then consider how you want to distribute the material of your course and which licence you want to apply to it. These choices will also affect the licences under which you can use the distributed material in your course.

Copyright.h5p

HEI:

The higher education institution acquires the necessary licences, keeps them up to date and informs the teacher about how and for which purposes they can be used. The higher education institution also provides instructions for the use of various copyright licences in content production.

Teacher:

With the help of the higher education institution, the teacher selects the most suitable software licences for producing their material and course. The teacher determines the copyright licence under which they produce their courses and materials.

Learner:

The learner respects copyrights and complies with valid copyright legislation and the specified licences.

  Tools:

Different software packages and licence templates effectively enable the teacher to resolve issues related to the licensing and copyrights of the course. Tool licences are often very specific, which is why you should look at them carefully. CC licences should also be used as a good tool for protecting materials.

Fill in the copyrights and licences of your MOOC in your pedagogical manuscript. Pay attention to at least the following.
- Do the software packages you use allow educational and possibly commercial use of the materials you produce?
- What are your copyrights when producing materials?
- Under what copyright licence will the MOOC be published?
- Are you sure the use of the external content of the course (including images, videos and other materials) is allowed under copyrights?
- Have you followed good practice in attributing original materials and works to their author if you use external content in the course?
- Remember to mark copyrights appropriately in the content where required.

References

Avoin oppiminen ja avoimet oppimateriaalit - Avoin kulma - Laurea LibGuides at Laurea University of Applied Sciences (in Finnish)

https://tekijanoikeus.fi/tekijanoikeus/ (in Finnish)

https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/

Copyright in Finland - Ministry of Education and culture