Exercises: Intellectual property and licences

Explain in your own words what copyright is and state who holds it in each case, justifying your answer: a drawing you made yourself, a photo you took of a monument, and a song by a famous band that you recorded with your phone at a concert.

Creative Commons licences use four symbols: BY, NC, SA, and ND. Match each symbol with its condition — attribution, non-commercial use, share-alike, no derivative works — and explain with an example what each one allows and prohibits.

The diagram ranks several ways of protecting a work, from the most restrictive to the most open, but one step is missing.

Propose a Creative Commons licence that fits into the missing step and justify its position on the ladder by comparing it with its neighbors.

Classify these creations as "protected by copyright" or "not protected as a work", and justify your choice: (a) a poem written by your cousin, (b) the idea for a game that has not yet been developed, (c) a meme with your own edit, (d) the list of the ten longest rivers and (e) the code of an app.

A photo displays the symbol © and the phrase "all rights reserved". Explain what this means in practice: what another person can do with that photo without asking for permission, what they cannot do and what the correct way is to be able to use it.

To attribute a CC BY licensed photo properly, you must state the author, the title of the work, the licence and the source link. These details are in jumbled order: "CC BY 4.0", "Sunset at the port", "www.bancofotos.ejemplo/atardecer", "Fátima Ferrer". Put them in order to create a complete attribution and explain why something is missing if you only include the author's name.

Explain what the public domain is and at what point works enter it (a long time after the death of their author). Give an example of a classic work that is already in the public domain and explain what can be done with it without asking for permission.

You draw a comic strip in your notebook and do not write any licence or the © symbol. Explain what protection that drawing has by default, why it does not need to be registered or marked for it to be yours, and what advantage adding a Creative Commons licence would have if you want to share it.

You want to illustrate the class blog and you find three images: (a) an image-bank photo with a CC BY licence, (b) a digital newspaper photo with the © symbol and (c) an illustration with a CC BY-NC licence. Explain what you can and cannot do with each one on the blog and what information you must include when using it.

You have created a comic strip and want anyone to be able to share it for free, but without modifying or selling it, and always giving you credit. Choose the appropriate Creative Commons licence, write its full name and the conditions it includes, and explain where you should place it for it to be valid.

A student copies three sentences from a web page and pastes them into their work without indicating anything, changing just two words. Explain what plagiarism is and why this way of working is plagiarism, and rewrite the example passage showing how the source would be cited correctly.

The figure shows the four symbols that make up Creative Commons licences.

Using the legend in the figure, explain what each of these three licences allows and requires: CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC and CC BY-ND. Then choose one of them for the drawings in the class newspaper and justify your choice.

A "derivative work" is a new creation made from an existing one: a translation, a remix or a collage. Explain why the ND (no derivative works) condition prohibits these uses and decide what you could and could not do with a CC BY-ND photo: publish it as it is while crediting the author, crop it, apply a filter to it or use it in a collage.

You use a photo with a CC BY-SA licence in your presentation and then share the full presentation on the class cloud. Explain what the SA (share alike) condition requires, which licence you should share your presentation under and what would happen if you shared it with "all rights reserved".

The NC condition prohibits commercial use, but the line is not always clear. Analyse these three cases and decide whether they comply with a CC BY-NC image, giving your reasons: (a) using it on a personal blog that displays ads, (b) using it in the PTA magazine that is sold to fund a school trip and (c) using it in a non-profit class project.

You upload the project video to a platform and after a while the audio is muted because a famous song plays in the background. Explain which automated system has taken action and why, what options the platform gives you and what two legal alternatives you have so that the next video has music without any issues.

A festival uses a photo of yours published on your social network on their poster, "but they mention you in the corner". Analyse whether the mention is sufficient for the use to be legal, what rights you have over your photo and what steps you could take if you do not agree with that use.

Your group is preparing a website about the history of your municipality and finds three resources: 1) a current photo of a monument taken from a blog with no mention of a license, 2) a municipal map from 1780 digitised by the historical archive, and 3) a song licensed under CC BY-NC. Two opposing opinions arise within the team: "on the internet, anything can be used if we cite the source" and "we can't use anything because everything is copyrighted". Prove why both ideas are false by analysing what you can and cannot do legally with each of the three resources according to their rights regime.

The class is going to launch a digital school newspaper. Design its licensing policy: what licence your own content will have, which sources images can be taken from and how third-party materials will be cited. Justify each decision considering the authors, the readers and the school.

To create atmosphere in a class video about World War II, a classmate inserts 15 seconds of a famous soundtrack in the background and claims: "It's legal because it lasts less than 30 seconds, I put the author in the credits, and it's for a school assignment, so the right of quotation applies." Justify why their claim is legally incorrect by analysing the actual purpose required by law to apply the right of quotation, and propose two different legal alternatives to add sound to the video.

For the final Technology video, you have used: 1) an audio track licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, 2) an old photograph in the Public Domain, and 3) an icon licensed under CC BY 4.0. Design the exact content of the final credits screen applying the full attribution formula to each resource (title, authorship, source, and license type), and justify why you would commit a legal infringement if you published your video under an "All rights reserved" license.

The school wants to install a video editor on the classroom computers, translate its menus into a co-official language, and distribute copies on USB flash drives to the students. A student suggests a well-known application, saying: "It works perfectly for us because it's freeware and can be downloaded for free from the internet." Refute their proposal by differentiating between freeware (software gratuito) and free software (software libre), and justify which essential software freedoms the school needs in order to legally carry out everything planned.

During a practical activity in the workshop, a classmate takes a close-up photograph of you where you are clearly recognisable. Days later, the school publishes the image on its website and in printed brochures. When you ask for it to be removed, the school responds: "The student who took the photo has transferred their rights to us in writing, so the publication is legal." Refute the school's argument by distinguishing copyright from the right to one's own image, and explain which two technical or legal solutions the school has if you do not give your consent.

Your group is going to publish a digital magazine in PDF and, additionally, will print 50 copies to sell them for 2.00 pesos at the school's charity market. For the cover, you want to use an image from an image bank advertised as "100% free", but whose terms state: "Non-commercial personal use; print reproduction and redistribution prohibited". Analyze the legal feasibility of using that image in the digital magazine and in the printed copies, identify the infringements committed, and determine what specific type of Creative Commons license you would need to carry out both uses legally.