Prepare

Do you use content from other authors in your material?

If you use content such as images, texts or diagrams that originate from other authors, you must check whether their inclusion is legally permissible and whether certain conditions must be met. Such content must also be clearly marked as third-party works. If you have only created your own content, you can proceed directly to the next step.

Does the content you want to use fall under copyright protection?

Not protected by copyright are, among others:

• Texts, pictures, music, etc. whose creator has been dead for 70 years,
• Official documents (e.g. laws, ordinances, judgments),
• Content with a lack of creativityAdditional information
• Scientific/historical data, facts and findings
• Styles and methods.

The degree of creativity and originality that a work must have in order to be protected by copyright and serves as a threshold for distinguishing protected works from works in the public domain. You can find a brief explanation of this in our video What is level of creation?

These works may be used freely. It is not necessary to cite the source, but this should be done in the interests of good scientific practice.

Can you quote the content?

You may cite any other published work in any of their own works (including in OER)Additional information.

The legal basis for citation can be found under §51 UrhG.

However, a citation is only permitted if you

• deal with the quoted text (purpose of citation),
• only quote as much as necessary, as little as possible (scope of citation)
• the work is not altered (prohibition of alteration) and
• name the source (source citation).

If the third-party work replaces your own work or only fulfills a decorative purpose, this is not a permissible quotation.

Is the content under a Creative Commons (CC) license?

If the content is CC-licensed, you may use it in accordance with the respective license conditions Additional information.

Creative Commons licenses are standardized license agreements that grant different rights of use. You can find an overview of Creative Commons licenses here in the OER basics.

Openly licensed works must also be identified as third-party content. Use the TULLU+B rule as a guide:

Title of the work

if this is known to you

Author of the work

in the way they wish to be named

License of the work

including license version* and, if applicable, country-specific porting (e.g. CC BY 3.0 DE)

Link to the license text

on the Creative Commons homepage as a hyperlink or written out URL (e.g. CC BY 4.0)

Place of origin of the work

if known as hyperlink or written out URL

Editing

if you have modified the work.

Illustration TULLU+B by twillo, licensed under CC BY 4.0, based on OER made easy with the TULLU rule by Jöran Muuß-Merholz and Sonja Borski for OERinfo - Informationsstelle OER, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

*CC licenses are constantly undergoing revision processes. Over time, this results in new license versions (2.0, 3.0 and 4.0) with different terms and conditions. Further information can be found here.

You cannot cite the work and it is not openly licensed?

Then you need to ask the author of the work whether you are allowed to use it. You need simple usage rights for this.

It is essential that you set out your agreements with the authors in writing and include

• where, how and for what purpose you wish to use the work,
• under which license your complete work is to be distributed and
• which editing rights you require.

You can find our template for obtaining usage rights here.

Choose a suitable license for your work

Now think about which use of your work you would like to allow other people and choose a suitable - preferably open - Creative Commons license(CC 0, CC BY or CC BY-SA)Additional information.

Please note the following:

• If your work is the work of several authors, you may only jointly decide on the license.
• If you have mixed openly licensed works of other authors with each other or with your own content in your work, this is known as a remix. In this case, the license of your entire work must not permit more than the licenses of the materials usedAdditional information. For videos in particular, you should check carefully whether your work is a remixAdditional information.

Attach a license notice to your work

Attach the license notice clearly visible to your material, e.g. in the footer or in the credits of a video with the following information:

• License and license versionAdditional information
• Link to the license textAdditional information
• Author:inside information