Is NY State or Common Core Inc Violating Creative Commons Licensing?
3 min read
Update: I asked if anyone from Creative Commons could weigh in here. If I learn anything new, I'll update this post, and/or follow up with a new post containing the additional information. End update
New York State spent 28 million on the Common Core aligned curriculum currently available at the EngageNY site. This curriculum was funded via federal money that New York won as part of Race To The Top.
Leaving aside the question of how that money could have been used to support local professional development, one of the bright sides of the NY State curriculum is that it is licensed under a Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 license.
For example, the screenshot below is taken from page 13 of NY's Grade 2 Math Curriculum. The PDF from which the screenshot is replicated as a point of reference in Google drive.
As you can see in the screenshot, Common Core Inc (the contractor who was paid to write the content) reserves some rights, and the work is released under the Creative Commons license.
This text is also for sale via Wileys. Paperback versions are currently available via Wileys. This is fine, and a piece of work that has been released under a Non-Commercial license can be included in a commercial venture, provided the seller gets permission.
However, a look at the sample chapters available on the Wiley's site shows some odd differences. On the Wiley's version (screenshot below, full PDF attached as reference to this post), Common Core Inc now retains all rights to the work, and the Creative Commons license is stripped. Aside from that, the content appears completely identical, down to the date of the last edit.
The fact that someone changed ownership and stripped open licensing from content created with public dollars raises some questions - and at the outset, it's necessary to state that all these questions would be moot if the Wiley version had the same licensing as the EngageNY version:
- Why does Common Core Inc claim all rights to the Wiley version? Why does Common Core Inc and/or Wiley pull the Share-Alike clause that is present on the NY State version?
- Did NY State agree to both pay for the development of this curriculum to be released under a NC-SA license AND for Common Core Inc to sell a proprietary version of identical content?
- Did NY State give permission for Common Core Inc to strip the Share-Alike clause from the content it paid for?
- Does releasing one version under a Creative Commons license and selling an identical proprietary version violate the terms of Race to the Top funding?
- Does releasing one version under a Creative Commons license and selling an identical proprietary version violate Creative Commons licensing terms?
Possibly, this is an oversight, and the reality that the NY State content is available under a Creative Commons license means that no one needs to spend money on a proprietary version, but given that the NY State content was funded with Federal dollars, it would be good to have some clarity and transparency on this.
