Open Knowledge Foundation Blog

Just a quick note to say that the study of usage of and attitudes towards open content licenses in cultural heritage organisations (which we blogged back in August) has now been published. The final report is available here.

107 organisations responded to the survey. The executive summary lists the following key findings:

• Only 4 respondents out of 107 indicated that they held content but were not making it available online nor had plans to make it available online;
• Images and text are the two content types most likely to be made available online;
• Sound appears to be the most held content type not currently available online and with no plans to make it available in the future;
• Many make some part of their collection available online without having done any formal analysis of the impact this may have;
• 59 respondents were aware of Creative Archive or Creative Commons;
• 10 use a CA or CC licence for some of their content; and
• 12 have plans to use a CA or CC licence in the future.

In the conclusion it is stated:

The complexities of copyright law and the technicalities of licensing pose difficulties for those wishing to make use of an open content licence – or to develop a website copyright policy reflective of the organisation’s stance on use and re-use. Several respondents noted a desire for tools to find out the appropriate application of open content licences. As many of the respondents operate without a designated person to deal with copyright issues, easily accessible content on copyright and licensing will be needed.

Hence it looks as though, as alluded to in their initial proposal, the authors of the report may go on to produce literature on copyright and licensing. I wonder whether our own guide to open licensing could prove useful in this respect. We look forward to seeing how this develops!

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