There has been much discussion in the online education community about Creative Commons materials licenced for Non-Commerical Use and their use by the wider community of educators - esepcially those who do not work at strictly not-for-profit educational institutions. Wintec falls into this category of institution, so the conversation naturally includes our use here at Wintec of Non-Commercial Creative Commons licenced works.
The Creative Commons Non-Commerical Licence states its usage as:
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.
and defines 'commerical use' as:
A commercial use is one primarily intended for commercial advantage or monetary compensation.
Because of these definitions, the use of NonCommerial licenced material at for-profit educational insitutes has been questioned. To attempt a closer look at the controversy, Creative Commons undertook and then published a study on their users' interpretation of 'non-commerical' when using the Creative Commons Non-Commercial licence, which you can find linked below.
What all this means for Wintec staff is that, since certain Wintec uses of Creative Commons material may be interpreted as being in line with 'commericial advantage', use of Creative Commons works with a Non-Commerical licence needs to be thoughtful and circumspect.
Err on the side of caution, and remember that we are also not exempt from Copyright and cannot claim Fair Use on not-for-profit educational grounds. Know what Wintec's Copyright restrictions are, and practice responsible use of all copyrighted materials.
