[GOAL] Free to fee CC: the conference presentation

[Heather Morrison]

Perhaps this illustration of a common scenario will help to clarify how works that are licensed Creative Commons can easily transition from free to fee:

Consider a presenter at a conference which has registration fees, or a classroom in a course where tuition must be paid. The presenter can take works that are free on the web and licensed via Creative Commons and use them in their presentation, even though the source is free and online (fits the definition of open access) while the destination is fee-based and offline (does not fit the definition of open access).

This illustrates how the useful CC licenses, despite a superficial resemblance with the BOAI definition of OA, are essentially not the same as open access. The CC world encompasses both free and fee.

CC provides a very useful tool for the OA world, but it is a mistake to think that any CC license can define OA.

I do not mean to suggest that OA works should not be included in presentations at conferences and/or classrooms at all. Rather I am trying to demonstrate the point that reuse of CC licensed works need not imply free. If we want ongoing and/or downstream OA, we need more than just Creative Commons licenses.

In particular I suggest we need organizations (libraries, universities, archives, government) committed to preserving and providing access on an ongoing basis. This is a key reason why OA policy should always be green.

best,

Heather Morrison