Free Content Definition

"Free Content" and "Free Expression" = any work or expression which can be freely studied, applied, copied and/or modified, by anyone, for any purpose. It also describes certain permissible restrictions that respect or protect these essential freedoms.

Below is a provisional list of characteristics, i.e. a non-final version of the Freedom Defined project.

URL = http://freedomdefined.org/Definition

Definition

"In order to be recognized as "free" under this definition, a license must grant the following freedoms without limitation:

• The freedom to study and apply the information: The licensee must not be restricted by clauses which limit their right to examine, alter or apply the information. The license may not, for example, restrict "reverse engineering", and it may not limit the application of knowledge gained from the work in any way.

• The freedom to redistribute copies: Copies may be sold, swapped or given away for free, as part of a larger work, a collection, or independently. There must be no limit on the amount of information that can be copied. There must also not be any limit on who can copy the information or on where the information can be copied.

• The freedom to distribute modified versions: In order to give everyone the ability to improve upon a work, the license must not limit the freedom to distribute a modified version, as above, regardless of the intent and purpose of such modifications. However, some restrictions may be applied to protect these essential freedoms, as well as the requirement of attribution".

Context

Unsatisfied with the lack of clarity of the Creative Commons system, a number of people, such as Benjamin Mako Hill, Erik Moller and others, decided to create the Freedom Defined project, in order to define the characteristics free licenses should be beholden to.

It is meant as a framework to judge open and free licenses, and will eventually result in a new subset of Creative Commons licenses.

This work is done at this website [1]