Open content or OpenContent is a neologism coined by David Wiley in 1998 which describes a creative work that others can copy or modify. The term evokes open source, which is a related concept in software.
When the term OpenContent was first used by Wiley, it described works licensed under the Open Content License (a non-free share-alike license, see 'Free content' below) and perhaps other works licensed under similar terms. It has since come to describe a broader class of content without conventional copyright restrictions. The openness of content can be assessed under the '4Rs Framework' based on the extent to which it can be reused, revised, remixed and redistributed by members of the public without violating copyright law. Unlike open source and free content, there is no clear threshold that a work must reach to qualify as 'open content'.
Although open content has been described as a counterbalance to copyright, open content licenses rely on a copyright holder's power to license their work.
Read more about Open Content: Definition, Free Content and Free Documentation, Open Access, Open Content and Education, Licenses
Famous quotes containing the words open and/or content:
“Wild Bill was indulging in his favorite pastime of a friendly game of cards in the old No. 10 saloon. For the second time in his career, he was sitting with his back to an open door. Jack McCall walked in, shot him through the back of the head, and rushed from the place, only to be captured shortly afterward. Wild Bill’s dead hand held aces and eights, and from that time on this has been known in the West as “the dead man’s hand.””
—State of South Dakota, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“No healthy man, in his secret heart, is content with his destiny. He is tortured by dreams and images as a child is tortured by the thought of a state of existence in which it would live in a candy store and have two stomachs.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)