The right license/Free cultural works

' This tutorial is a freely licensed work, as explained in the Definition of Free Cultural Works. '

Creators of OER and free content are encouraged to release their creative works under a free cultural works approved license. What constitutes free content may be confusing, especially with regards to digital content. We recommend that you study this resource carefully.

Defining Free Cultural Works (free/libre content)
The definition of Free Cultural Works is based on the premise that the easier it is to re-use and derive works, the richer our cultures become.

The Definition of Free Cultural Works is a project, not unlike the Free Software Definition, which set out to resolve the ambiguity associated with the concept of "free content".

There is growing international interest in the concept of "Open Educational Resources" (OERs), for which the term was first adopted at UNESCO's 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries. However, not all resources which carry the OER label meet the requirements of the Free Cultural Works (Free Content) definition. Therefore it is necessary to clarify what we mean by free content.

The OER Foundation and the WikiEducator community subscribe to the Free Cultural Works Definition, along with numerous other OER projects including Wikipedia (and the sister projects of the Wikimedia foundation like Wikibooks and Wikiversity) and Connexions.

Requirements of the free cultural works definition
In order for a resource to meet the requirements of the Free Cultural Works definition, it must:


 * 1) Meet all the requirements specified below, that is the essential freedoms, permissible restrictions and additional technical requirements; and
 * 2) It must carry a free content license or public domain dedication, which is a legal instrument whereby the legal owner of the resource grants specific freedoms in accordance with the requirements of the free content definition below.

Additional conditions
MIT's OpenCourseWare project does not meet the requirements of the free cultural works definition because it uses a non-commercial restriction in its license. Furthermore, there are closed format files included in many of the resources which do not meet the additional conditions listed above. Connexions content does meet the requirements of the definition, although a few resources include downloadable materials (e.g, handouts) in non-free or pdf (difficult to revise and adapt) file formats. The OER Commons is a portal which directs users to resources on the web. The default license of the OER Commons does not meet the requirements of the free cultural works definition. However, the OER commons portal contains numerous resources, including some which use a free cultural works approved license. The resources are searchable by conditions of use.