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Open & Zero Cost Educational Resources: A Guide for HTC Faculty

OER Publishing Platforms

Collections vs Remixes

What Is a Collection?

 

A collection is the assemblage of various CC licensed works in a single place, without altering any of these works individually.  For example, creating an interactive gallery of various CC licensed photos would constitute a collection, as while you are presenting the photos together in a new context, the photos themselves have not been altered in anyway.

What is a Remix?

 

A remix is when you combine or change the content of CC licensed material to create something new.  For example, adding text or images to a photo, rewriting portions of a textbook to make it better align with your class SLOs, or overlaying various fragments of CC licensed audio to create a new song would constitute a remix or adaptation.  However, not all changes to a CC licensed work are considered remixes.  Merely presenting something in a new format (e.g. converting a textbook to audio form, converting an .epub book to .pdf, or transcribing a video) or making spelling corrections does not constitute a remix.  To be a remix, the content of a work needs to be altered in some way.

Fruit Still-Life vs a Smoothie

The distinction between Collections and Remixes have been likened to the distinction between a collection of ingredients for a smoothie and the smoothie itself.  Creating a “still-life” of CC licensed fruit (if such a thing existed) would constitute a collection, but actually blending that fruit together into something new would make it a remix.

 

"CC Smoothie" by Nate Angell.  CC BY.  Derivative of "Strawberry Smoothie On Glass Jar" by Element5 in the public domain, and various CC Licenses by Creative Commons Used under CC BY.

Licensing Collections & Remixes

Licensing Collections

Because collections do not adapt works into something new, you have greater freedom to use CC licensed content and choose licenses for your collection.  Some considerations when licensing collections:

BY: You will always need to credit authors when you use CC content licensed as BY in your collection, but you do not have to license your collection using BY.
SHARE-ALIKE: Because collections are not derivatives, you are free to use SA content in your collection without having to license your collection as SA.
NON-COMMERCIAL: Content licensed as NC applies to collections.  If you use NC content in your collection, you cannot use your collection for commercial purposes. 
NO-DERIVATIVES: Because collections are not derivatives, it is OK to use content licensed as ND in your collection.  Using ND content will not affect how you need to license your collection.

 

Licensing Remixes

When remixing works, you will have slightly more restrictions in which CC content you can use and how you can license your remix:

BY: You will always need to credit authors when you use CC content licensed as BY in your remix, but you do not have to license your collection using BY.
SHARE-ALIKE: If you use SA licensed content in your remix, you must license it as SA.  However, if you did not use SA content, you are free to use SA or not. 
NON-COMMERCIAL: Content licensed as NC applies to remixes.  If you use NC content in your collection, you cannot use your remix for commercial purposes and it is recommended that you license your remix as NC.
NO-DERIVATIVES: You cannot use ND licensed content in a remix.  However, provided that you did not use SA licensed content in your remix, you can license it as ND.