Digital publishing and learning materials

Copyright vs Creative Commons – what’s the difference and why does it matter?

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Copyright is the legal right that lets a creator control copying and reuse of an original work. Creative Commons is a set of licences the creator can apply on top of copyright to say, in advance, how other people may share or adapt that work.

Creative Commons does not replace copyright. Last reviewed: 31 August 2026.

It arises automatically in most countries when an original work is made. It covers copying, distributing, performing and making adaptations, with limits set by national law. You do not need a © symbol for copyright to exist, though the symbol is still used.

What is Creative Commons?

A Creative Commons (CC) licence is a public permission the rights holder attaches to a work. Users can follow the licence without asking each time, as long as they keep the conditions (for example attribution, or no commercial use, or share-alike).

What Creative Commons licences are available?

The common building blocks are: Attribution (BY), ShareAlike (SA), NonCommercial (NC) and NoDerivatives (ND). They combine into licences such as CC BY and CC BY-NC-SA. CC0 is a public-domain dedication, not a “some rights reserved” licence.

What to be aware of in online education projects

Check the licence on every image, video and text you did not make. Attribution is not optional if the licence requires it. “Found on Google” is not a licence.

Fair use and fair dealing

Fair use is a US doctrine. South Africa and several other countries use fair dealing, which is narrower and named in statute. Do not copy a US “fair use” checklist into a South African classroom and call it the law. When unsure, use a CC work or ask.

Related: open educational resources.

Sources

  1. Creative Commons. Licence types. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

CUP South Africa partners with NGO Worldreader

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Interviewed for an article in The Bookseller magazine about a mobile learning project I initiated with Cambridge University Press and the NGO Worldreader.

Article below and source here http://www.thebookseller.com/news/cup-south-africa-partners-ngo-worldreader

CUP South Africa (CUP SA) has partnered with NGO Worldreader to make content for schoolchildren freely available across sub-Saharan Africa. Worldreader has developed an e-reading app, hosted on cloud-based mobile application platform BiNu, which enables “feature phones”;those without Android or iOS operating systems, typically Nokias, which are widely used across the continent;to be used as e-reading devices.

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Pioneering Mobile Learning in Africa: A Partnership Worldreader

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Mobile learning holds immense potential for enhancing education and literacy in Africa. Recognizing this potential, Cambridge partnered with the NGO Worldreader to bring educational content to schoolchildren across sub-Saharan Africa. The initiative focused on utilizing widely available feature phones as e-reading devices through an innovative e-reading app developed by Worldreader.

The Challenge

In sub-Saharan Africa, there is a need for accessible educational content, especially for young children. While feature phones are widely available across the continent, they traditionally lack the advanced functionalities of smartphones. The challenge was to leverage these feature phones for educational purposes and provide diverse language content to address the needs of children from different linguistic backgrounds.

The Solution

Worldreader developed an e-reading app hosted on the cloud-based mobile application platform BiNu, transforming feature phones into e-reading devices. Cambridge recognized the ingenuity of this development, as it meant that anyone with a feature phone could now have an e-reader simply by downloading the BiNu Worldreader app.

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