Draft Language for cc.edu

So, after a very long delay, here is the draft language of the Creative Commons license option for permitting only educational uses:


You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above except in satisfaction of both of the following conditions:

(i) You do so in a manner that is directly related to and of material
assistance to the primary teaching and learning activities of an educational institution, and

(ii) You do so solely for educational purposes.

An “educational institution” is a school or other organization primarily
and directly engaged in facilitating teaching and learning.

Rationale below. Please direct comments to the cc-education list.


Some have tried to argue that an education license should support all manners of informal teaching and learning. I must admit that, strictly speaking, I cannot draw a line between these forms of use and the generic use rights granted already under cc. I of course understand the commercial / noncommercial distinction, but there is already a commercial use option in the cc infrastructure. In other words, the only way to support all uses intended to support informal learning is to use standard cc (perhaps with the noncommercial option).

The cc.edu allows a content creator to release their works only for educational use. If they permit commercial use, then for-profits schools (whether private K-12 or someone like the University of Phoenix) would be able to employ materials licensed this way.

Most importantly, the license option has no notion of an agent — that is, the license isn’t restricted to teachers or employees of a university or other institution. This means that many of the most valuable parts of formal education (i.e., the informal parts) like study sessions with peers, etc., will be perfectly allowable under the cc.edu option.

The cc.edu attempts to take a slightly broader stance toward educational use than traditional educational use licenses, while maintaining differentiation in the use rights it does not reserve. I have argued previously that this is extremely important.