1. YOU DON’T NEED MY PERMISSION:
FREEING SCHOLARSHIP
BY HACKING COPYRIGHT
Alycia Sellie
Brooklyn College
asellie@brooklyn.cuny.edu
CUNY IT Conference
December 2, 2011

2. I AM NOT A LAWYER.

5. WHAT IF I DON’T WANT THE
WORK THAT I CREATE TO BE
RESTRICTED FOR MY ENTIRE LIFE
+70 YEARS AFTER MY DEATH?

6. PERMISSION CULTURE
With standard copyright, you can allow others to
use your work—but only when they ask
permission, and after you grant each person
specific rights.
Lawrence Lessig: Free Culture vs. Permission
Culture:
“The opportunity to create and transform becomes weakened in
a world in which creation requires permission and creativity
must check with a lawyer.” (173)

7. HACKING COPYRIGHT
What I’m calling “hacking copyright” here refers
to the ways in which we can license our work
to allow wider use—without requiring that
others ask permission, and without the
intermediation of copyright experts and
lawyers.

8. A FEW FREE CULTURE LICENSES:
Gnu Public License (GPL)
• “a free, copyleft license for software and
other kinds of works.”
Creative Commons Licenses
• “licenses and tools [that] forge a balance
inside the traditional “all rights reserved
setting that copyright law creates.”

9. WHAT RIGHTS DO CC LICENSES GRANT USERS
THAT STANDARD COPYRIGHT DOES NOT?
Free licenses can grant the right (without
asking permission) to:
• The right to read/view/copy
• Share or redistribute
• Remix and create new works
• Restrict only specific uses (i.e. noncommercial use—
but noncommercial licenses are not seen as free
licenses by many)

10. FREE LICENSES ARE STILL COPYRIGHT
Free Licenses are not outside of copyright law.
Even with a free license, copyright law still
governs the use of your work.
“Every Creative Commons license works around
the world and lasts as long as applicable
copyright lasts (because they are built on
copyright).”

11. ARE FREE LICENSES THE SAME AS OPEN
ACCESS?
Yes and No: Definitions of Open Access and problems therein
Peter Suber’s definition of OA includes “free of most copyright
and licensing restrictions.”
But as we’ve seen, Free licenses=a form of Copyright.
Usually, OA definitions=the right to view, but maybe not the right
to redistribute, remix, etc.

12. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO INSURE THAT MY
WORK WILL BE USED (EVEN WHILE I AM STILL
ALIVE)?
Nina Paley’s mimiandeunice.com

13. FREE YOUR WORK!