The foundation is committed to openness and transparency, and this philosophy extends to the large amount of valuable educational and other copyrightable material created by grantees with foundation funds. We're excited to announce that to further promote transparency and encourage greater accessibility to these materials, we have embraced Creative Commons open licensing. Below, we describe important changes we have made to our licensing policy, and how they may affect you.
Effective February 1, 2015, grantees and consultants will be required to make foundation-funded materials subject to a Creative Commons open license allowing others, free of charge and without requesting permission, the ability to copy, redistribute, and adapt existing materials, provided they give appropriate credit to the original author.
What is open licensing?
Open licensing is an alternative to the traditional “all rights reserved” copyright, and encourages sharing intellectual property in a digital global commons. By broadly disseminating a large amount of educational and research materials resulting from our funding, we hope to make our work and the work of our grantees more accessible and ultimately, increase its impact.
Open licensing is an alternative to the traditional “all rights reserved” copyright, and encourages sharing intellectual property in a digital global commons. By broadly disseminating a large amount of educational and research materials resulting from our funding, we hope to make our work and the work of our grantees more accessible and ultimately, increase its impact.
The Ford Foundation will use the most recent Creative Commons Attribution License, CC BY 4.0, the most open license offered by Creative Commons, a non-profit organization that facilitates the sharing and use of material through simple, standardized licenses. For more information about the organization or this particular license, please visit their website.
How will the new policy affect grantees?
Under our new policy, nearly all of the content produced with project support funds from the foundation—including scholarly research, multimedia materials, videos, white papers, and more, created by grantees on subjects of critical importance—will be widely available for re-use with only the condition that the creator is attributed. In practice, it requires that content produced pursuant to a project grant be made easily available to the public, on the grantee's website or otherwise, under the CC BY 4.0 license. Grantees will also be required to include in the narrative reports delivered to the foundation information on how they fulfilled the dissemination and open licensing requirement. The policy will not apply to existing grants or to general operating or core support grants.
Under our new policy, nearly all of the content produced with project support funds from the foundation—including scholarly research, multimedia materials, videos, white papers, and more, created by grantees on subjects of critical importance—will be widely available for re-use with only the condition that the creator is attributed. In practice, it requires that content produced pursuant to a project grant be made easily available to the public, on the grantee's website or otherwise, under the CC BY 4.0 license. Grantees will also be required to include in the narrative reports delivered to the foundation information on how they fulfilled the dissemination and open licensing requirement. The policy will not apply to existing grants or to general operating or core support grants.
We recognize that any time we place new requirements on grantees, we're asking them to change practices, and we want to be sure that the benefits from the change outweigh the costs of making it. We believe that the advantages of open licensing are clear and substantial. By making it easier to use, share, and build upon work, our new policy benefits the original creator, the foundation, and the public, as it enables novel uses in situations not contemplated by the original grant funding.
Of course, we recognize that there will be situations in which an open license will not make sense, such as when the product contains sensitive or confidential information (e.g., a report on the internal capacity of a grantee) or when the grantee expects to generate revenue from the sale of the product that is critical to the success of the grant (e.g., documentary films). In such situations, we will work with the grantee to find an alternative to open licensing. Our flexibility will be critical as we implement this policy change as smoothly as possible.
Working together for a more creative and open philanthropy
Ultimately, this change seeks to advance social justice worldwide. We are proud to join other foundations, including Open Society Foundations, the Gates Foundation, and the Packard Foundation, which use some form of Creative Commons license. Together, working with our grantees, we hope to contribute to a transformation in philanthropy toward greater information sharing and knowledge transfer, ultimately leading to greater impact.
Ultimately, this change seeks to advance social justice worldwide. We are proud to join other foundations, including Open Society Foundations, the Gates Foundation, and the Packard Foundation, which use some form of Creative Commons license. Together, working with our grantees, we hope to contribute to a transformation in philanthropy toward greater information sharing and knowledge transfer, ultimately leading to greater impact.
You can learn more about the new licensing from our press release. Foundation program officers and grant managers will provide all grantees with materials and educational support to assist them in making this transition. If you have any questions about the new policy in the meantime, please feel free to reach out to your program officer.
Sincerely,
Kenneth T. Monteiro
Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel
Vice President, Secretary and General Counsel
No comments:
Post a Comment