Cover lesson · Music · Year 9 · Intermediate

Creative Commons licences

DCF: Citizenship → Digital rights, licensing and ownership

Name: Class: Date:

Cover teacher — you need no subject knowledge

Print: this sheet, one per pupil, plus the stimulus sheet "Copyright and licence facts", one per pupil or one between two. No computers and no instruments needed — this is a paper lesson about who is allowed to use music.

Run: 5 min — read section 4 of the facts sheet, the licence table · 15 min — Part A, match the eight scenarios · 12 min — Part B, the two "not allowed" cases, written in sentences · 13 min — Part C, write the credit line and choose a licence for the class track · 5 min — swap and tick against the criteria. Answers exist: in Part A each licence code is either right or wrong, and the facts sheet decides it.

Collect: this sheet. Keep the facts sheets to reuse.

What you are doing

Your class has recorded a two-minute instrumental track for the school film. Before it can be used, somebody has to understand licences. You will match eight situations to the licence that fits, explain two situations where the answer is "you may not", write a real credit line, and then choose the licence for your own track and defend the choice.

Step by step

  1. 5 min — Read section 4 of the facts sheet. Write the six licence codes down the margin of this sheet from memory.
  2. 15 min — Part A. For each scenario write the licence code, and one reason in your own words.
  3. 12 min — Part B. Two situations are not permitted. Explain why, and give the person a lawful way forward.
  4. 13 min — Part C. Write the credit line, then choose and justify the licence for the class track.
  5. 5 min — Swap with a partner. Tick their sheet against the success criteria. Any answer with no reason does not count.

Part A — Match the licence

Write one of CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-SA, CC BY-NC-ND or CC0 in each row. Two rows may take the same answer; one row is a trick.

What the musician wants Licence Why that one
1. "Anyone at all can use my track, even a company in an advert, as long as my name is on it."
2. "People can remix my track, but every remix has to stay just as free as my original."
3. "A community radio show or a school film can use it. An advert cannot."
4. "Play it and share it anywhere, including on paid-for things, but do not chop it up or sample it."
5. "Take my drum loop and do anything with it. You do not even need to credit me."
6. "Non-commercial only, remixes allowed, and the remixes must carry the same conditions I used."
7. "Share the whole thing, unchanged, for free causes only. That is as far as I will go."
8. A track on a website has no licence information anywhere — no CC logo, no terms page, nothing.

Part B — Two that are not allowed

Write three or four sentences for each. Say which part of the licence is breached, then give a lawful route forward.

B1. The school film uses a track licensed CC BY-NC-SA. The finished film will be sold on DVD at the summer concert for £5 a copy to raise money for the parents' association.

B2. Dylan wants to sample eight bars of a CC BY-ND track and loop them under his own melody for the class mash-up.

Part C1 — Write the credit line

The film uses "Aber Tide" by Elin Vaughan, downloaded from the Free Music Archive, licensed CC BY 4.0. You shortened it from 3:40 to 45 seconds and faded the ending. Use the TASL pattern in section 5 of the facts sheet.

Part C2 — Choose the licence for your own track

The licence I would put on our class track
Reason 1 — what I want to allow
Reason 2 — what I want to stop
One thing I am giving up by choosing it
Why I did not choose CC0

Success criteria

If you finish early