While information is easily available through the internet, not all materials we find online are free to use.
In the academia, we need to cite sources of information properly and avoid plagiarism. The relevant guidelines can be found at the Citing Sources of Information guide. When we use other people's work, whether it is some texts, an image, or a song, we have to give credits to the creators and acknowledge them properly. This refers to the ethical use of information.
While both plagiarism and copyright infringement involve the improper use of someone else's work, it is important to note that the two concepts are different in some major ways.
The Creative Commons (CC) licenses are used to grant other people the right to use, distribute and build upon creative works under a set of well-defined license terms. As the terms and conditions of CC licenses are clearly defined, it facilitates a large community of internet users to use and disseminate creative works. It also foster creativity and cultivate a sharing culture in the digital environment.
Creative Commons (CC) licenses are a set of terms that the content creators can choose to apply to their work to indicate how they would like their work to be used by others – to be cited, adapted, re-distributed, and/or used for commercial purposes.
There are six types of CC licenses - from the most accommodating, CC-BY, under which people can use the work however they want as long as they cite the work, to the most restrictive, CC-BY-NC-ND, indicating that the work can neither be adapted nor be used for commercial purposes. The most current version of CC licenses is version 4.0. In addition to the six CC licenses, content creators can also dedicate their work to the public domain, CC0.
| License type | Free to share (Copy & re-distribute) | Free to adapt (Remix, transform or build upon) & re-distribute | Free to use for commercial purposes | Must attribute (give credit) | Must share alike (use same license if adapted) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Public Domain or PD or CC0
|
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No^ |
No |
|
Attribution only or CC BY
|
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
|
Attribution-ShareAlike or CC-BY-SA
|
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Attribution-NoDerivatives or CC BY-ND
|
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
- |
|
Attribution-NonCommercial
|
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
|
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike or CC BY-NC-SA
|
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives or CC BY-NC-ND
|
Yes |
No |
No |
Yes |
- |
^ Under CC0, the need for attribution is not bound by legal requirements, but can be based on ethical and professional norms.
For more about CC licenses, refer to: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/
Creative Commons licenses require the users of the work to attribute the creator.
Follow the Creative Commons "Best practices for attribution" guide for examples of attributing Creative Commons licensed materials.
For more about citing sources of information, refer to our "Citing sources of information" guide.
Information from the Intellectual Property Department (IPD) of HKSAR Government:
More leaflets and booklets from the IPD can be found here: https://www.ipd.gov.hk/en/tools-resources/publications/leaflets-and-booklets/index.html
To find copyright information related to teaching, refer to the Teaching Support from the Library - A Guide for Teaching Staff. For more information, refer to the Copyright in Education at CityU webpage.
The Copyright Classroom provides bi-lingual educational videos explaining copyright principles and exceptions, and their applications in real-life situations such as teaching and learning, research and presentation, entertainment, social media, art and performance, etc.
More videos are available from the Copyright Classroom YouTube channel.
