Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content that meets the definition of a free cultural work. A free cultural work is one which has no significant legal restriction on people's freedom:
- to use the content and benefit from using it,
- to study the content and apply what is learned,
- to make and distribute copies of the content,
- to change and improve the content and distribute these derivative works.
Although different definitions are used, free content is legally similar if not identical to open content. An analogy is the use of the rival terms free software and open source which describe ideological differences rather than legal ones.
Free content encompasses all works in the public domain and also those copyrighted works whose licenses honor and uphold the freedoms mentioned above. Because copyright law in most countries by default grants copyright holders monopolistic control over their creations, copyright content must be explicitly declared free, usually by the referencing or inclusion of licensing statements from within the work.
Though a work which is in the public domain because its copyright has expired is considered free, it can become non-free again if the copyright law changes.
Read more about Free Content: Usage, Wikipedia and Free Content
Famous quotes containing the words free and/or content:
“There are some who praise a man free from disease; to me no man who is poor seems free from disease but to be constantly sick.”
—Sophocles (497–406/5 B.C.)
“Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)