• Open culture is a way of living and creating that places an emphasis on freedom and creativity, over the pursuit of making money.
• Watch the video below to learn more about open culture:

• The best thing about open culture is that you don't need to ask permission, or pay, to enjoy it.
• Spend some time enjoying some of the open culture artifacts and sites below:

Download Great Expectations

Find free public domain books on Project Gutenberg

Find more open culture video on TED.com

Listen to Color Out by Kay

Find more open culture music on Jamendo

*Gibbon is not CC-licensed, but uses an even freer license (GNU GPL)

Learn more about Gibbon

• There are many licenses and systems that use copyright law to promote open culture (what we might call "copyleft"): we will focus on Creative Commons, which is the most popular.
• Creative Commons is a system that aims to develop an open society, where creators choose how to share their work, and get to use the work of others.
• Spend some time now watching the following video, which aims to help you understand what creative commons is:

• Let's say that you are now excited by the prospect of open culture, and what to find some of your own to enjoy.
• There is a vast quantity of CC content on the web....all free for you to use. So, how can you find Creative Commons licensed materials?
• Work now to try these tools for finding CC content:
  
  • Google Images (http://images.google.com, click on Tools and set the Usage Rights field to "Labelled for noncommercial reuse with modification")
  • Jamendo (http://www.jamendo.com)
  • Wikimedia Commons (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page)
  • Creative Commons Search (http://search.creativecommons.org)
• Whilst you are doing this, think about how you use Creative Commons licensed materials?

• Check the restrictions in place (BY, SA, NC, ND)
• What do these symbols mean?
• Always attribute (it is nice, and also required)

• One of the best things about Creative Commons is how simple it is to design and use a license that meets your needs.
• Spend some time now using the Creative Commons License Chooser to make your own license. The four arrows in the image below are hints to help you along the way:

• The video below talks through the process of choosing and applying a CC license:

• Believe it or not, you are a potential creator of amazing culture. You've got the following going for you:
• A powerful, networked computer with ever improving skills to use it
• A world of CC licensed work that you can draw on
• The ability to add a CC license to your work, to make sure it becomes part of our shared culture commons.
• The ability to post this work online for other to use, share and remix.
• Your task, in order to produce evidence for this unit, is to:
• Create a piece of work of your own choosing (it could be a video, essay, Wikipedia article, graphic, etc).
• Your work must contain at least two pieces of CC licensed work created by someone else.
• You must attribute the CC work you have used.
• You must add a CC license to your own work.
• You should consider sharing your work online, in order that others can freely access it.
• Once your work is complete, submit a link to your work as your evidence.