This is one of the most common questions I get from readers. It comes in many variations and seems to have both a practical and a philosophical component. The practical component boils down to: What exactly am I allowed to do with these materials, for free, without getting into trouble with anyone, and what permissions do I need? The philosophical component is more along the lines of: Why are you putting so much energy into something and then giving it away for free?
I’ll start with the practical. Copyright law is the main reason people are worried about using online materials. Modern technology has made it very easy to break copyright laws, but has also made it easier to catch and prosecute even minor and unintentional copyright infringements. (For a very interesting and engaging read on this subject, I recommend Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture.) But some authors actually want to make their work more freely available. (More about that later!) The traditional copyright is “all rights reserved,” with the alternative being that the work is in the public domain, with no rights reserved. The new alternative licenses, often called “copyleft,” allow an author/composer/creator to choose which rights to reserve, and which to open up to everyone. If you are not familiar with such licenses, I recommend reading a little about them at the Creative Commons website. Once you recognize the symbols and meanings of these licenses, you can be much more confident in your use of open works.
For example, everything at Connexions is published under one of the most open licenses available, the Creative Commons attribution (“cc by”) license. That means you can use the educational materials there very freely. Without specific permissions, you can view them, mirror or repost them at other sites, make hard copies, distribute or sell copies, translate the materials or make audio or video versions of them, make changes to them or combine them with other materials and then publish or distribute the altered and combined materials. The right that is reserved is “attribution,” which means that all of these uses should include a clear attribution listing the original author and source of the materials.
Which brings me very nicely to the “why would anyone do this” question. As Eric S. Raymond and others have pointed out, there are times and places when exchange (“you can only have it if you pay for it”) is not the best way to do things, and academics are one group that have realized that it is often in their best interests to share freely, for two reasons. One is that they are usually academics (and teachers) precisely because they really love their subject and want to share it with other people. The more people become interested in a subject area, actively making contributions and solving problems, the more everyone in that area benefits. Call me crazy, but I am fascinated by music theory and by the many musical traditions that are out there. I truly believe that if more people understood these subjects, it would help us all make beautiful music together, and that’s worth working toward.
The open education movement is very much dedicated to the idea that free, Internet-based resources can help make education in every subject more available and more equitable. (The Cape Town Open Education Declaration is a short summary of the main ideas.) There are other views of how to use the Internet, however. Pay-to-view educational sites, while understandably wanting a fair reward for their efforts in creating new resources, restrict both who is a teacher and who is a student, creating closed rather than open spaces for learning and exchanging ideas. Other “educational” sites are mainly meant to present a certain viewpoint or deliver advertisements. There are powerful forces behind these models of Internet use, but I believe that teacher-academics, through open resources, can provide a powerful counterbalance.
The other reason that academics like to share is that they get more respect (including more prestigious jobs and better-selling books) when they offer contributions that others find useful. That means that sharing your discoveries and insights with the most people possible is good, as long as everyone knows they are your ideas; that’s why attribution is so important. (Since this is a casual essay, I’ve only casually mentioned a few of the sources that have influenced my thoughts; most blog-readers don’t want footnotes. If it were an academic work, I would need to be much more clear about where each idea came from!)
Traditionally, academic success has been about influencing other academics, but there is no reason teachers could not also be rewarded for creating and publishing open educational materials. Again taking myself as an example, there were academic opportunities that arose largely because my online materials got a lot of attention from learners and other teachers. For me, that is another side of the “why I do this,” and I believe that we would all benefit if more teachers felt they would be rewarded for freely sharing. There are some attempts out there to institutionalize recognition and rewards for creating useful open resources, but as far as I know none has caught on widely yet.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. What is being tried? What would work best, and what is not working? What would you like to see? What problems do you think I’m ignoring?
I teach in an impoverished school district where my budget covers about six boxes of paper, and two printer cartridges. I supplement my supplies by investing about three to four thousand dollars a year on my own program. We also collect box tops for education which we hope will bring in about seven hundred and fifty dollars this year. If it wasn’t for Public Domain, Creative Commons, and my own materials, my students wouldn’t get much variety. I share what I create as much as possible both because other teachers have been kind enough to share with me, and because I recognize the fact that I being Dyslexic, Dysgraphic, and Dyscalcuic, need all of the editing support I can get.
I am also a retired Army Bandsman and a semi-retired Folksinger. My square peg never fit into the music industry’s round hole and I doubt that it ever will. the only hope my music has to survive is if I get it out to as many people as I can while I am alive, and get as much of it written down and recorded as possible.
There are more important things than fame, fortune, or prestige. there is also posterity. I would like to know that my work survives me, and that some form of my thought process lives on after I am plant food. In addition to that, I recognize that there is a great deal of animosity being created by the music publishing industry, most of it the industry’s fault. In the meantime, teachers need genuine examples of playable and singable music that isn’t tied up for the next seventy five to one hundred years by ASCAP or BMI. They don’t understand that they are biting the hand that feeds them. I don’t really care much about that, but I do want the love of music to survive their love of profit. One of the most valuable resources teachers can possibly use, is a coherent list of songs that are in the public domain, clearly creative commons with the restrictions on each song in language that a school administration and district can understand.
It would also be very useful to have a facility that would be willing to independently grade and identify the pedagogical purpose of songs that are created by us certified amateurs so we can eventually convince boards and contests to allow them to be used instead of he prohibitively expensive materials being extended into perpetuity simply because no one recognizes the liability all of this special licensing is putting on the educational community.
I believe that all of the things you want to see will happen, but that it will take some time, more time than either of us would wish. The Internet really has changed what is feasible and what is reasonable, but the reaction time of institutions like publishing industries and state music education boards is not quick. Meanwhile, every time somebody shares public domain or Creative Commons-licensed music with thousands of other musicians, it’s another small step in the right direction. I hope that the arrangements that you are sharing are “backed up” at multiple educational and document-sharing sites, so that they have a good chance of surviving until a centralized clearinghouse for such materials does arise.
Since my school doesn’t have specialist teachers teaching music, I must teach music with very little background in the subject. That said, I try very hard to be a good teacher, so I still try to deliver a good program to my students and meet the curriculum expectations.
I certainly appreciate resources like this, which are shared with others quite freely, as I spend a great deal of my own time and money finding and purchasing resources. However, I do agree that people deserve to profit from their hard work, and I certainly respect the creators’ rights to restrict how they wish their work to be used.
While I don’t feel that I have created much that is worth sharing (and it is unlikely that I will ever do so in the realm of music!), I hope that someday I can contribute some quality resources to the open educational system that the internet is beginning to create.
I get the strong impression that your situation is not at all unusual. Just imagine how much we could cut down on the out-of-pocket expenses for conscientious teachers if every experienced educator shared just one or two of the most useful lessons they have created!
I echo the above sentiments and wish to convey my gratitude for these resources. Without intentionally seeking Connexions, I have ‘Googled’ certain subjects pertaining to music and found myself directed to Catherine’s sites. I am teaching a new class in the fall and expect to need resources that are clearly written and succinctly delivered. This is a great site! Thank you.
Thanks for your very kind words!