This is a reading list of Web sites and paper books that you can use to get informed about Open Content, licenses, copyright, and related issues.

See CcDebate for in depth discussion of CC-specific issues.

Licensing

Several of the books highlighted at Books discuss licensing.

• Community Created Content Book by Hietanen, Välimäki and Oksanen analysing CC licensing and business models.
• Open Source Licensing: Software Freedom and Intellectual Property Law. Book by Lawrence Rosen about Open Source licenses. All chapters available for download under the Academic Free License 3.0.
• Open Source and Free Software Licensing. By Andrew M. St. Laurent, from O'Reilly and Associates. All chapters available for download under by-nd license.
• Licensing HOWTO. By Eric and Catherine Raymond. Detailed discussion of Open Source licensing issues, comparison of licenses, and some process information about changing license. Some idiosyncratic terminology ("academic licenses", for example).

Freedom definitions

• Free Software Definition from the Free Software Foundation
• Open Source Definition from the Open Source Institute
• Debian Free Software Guidelines from The Debian Project
• Definition of Free Cultural Works

Copyright

European copyright law

• Ulmer, Eugen, Urheber- und Verlagsrecht, 3rd ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 1980. (German). A classic. Still worth reading if you want to understand copyright law from an European perspective.
• Schricker, Gerard, m.fl., Urheberrecht, Kommentar, C.M. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, München, 1999. (German)
• Nordeman W, Vinck K & Herlin P, Urheberrecht und zum Urheberrechtsgesetz und zum urheberrechtswahmehmungsgesetz, 8th ed., Verlag W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, Berlin, Köln. (German)
• Shack, Haimo, Urheber- und Urhebervertragsrecht, 3rd ed., Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2005. (German)
• Bertrand, André, Le droit d’auteur et les droits voisins, 2nd ed., Dalloz, Paris, 1999. (French)

U.K. copyright law

• Cornish, William Rodolph & Llewelyn, David, Intellectual Property: Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Allied Rights. A text book for law school students, but still well worth reading.

U.S. copyright law

• Copyright basics (PDF version), from US Copyright Office. Overview of copyright issues for US jurisdictions. An excellent introduction to the subject and terminology.
• Nolo.com Copyright Section. Good overview of copyright from do-it-yourself legal publisher Nolo Press

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