- published: 16 Apr 2014
- views: 3157
Free content, libre 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:
Although there are a great many different definitions in regular everyday use, free content is legally very similar if not like an identical twin 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 Berne Convention 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.