12. What is open content?

Open content, coined by analogy with "open source" describes any kind of creative work including articles, pictures, audio, and video that is published in a format that explicitly allows the copying of the information. Technically, it is share alike without any prohibitions or otherwise. Content can be either in the public domain or under a license like the GNU Free Documentation License. The term is also used to emphasize content that can be modified by anyone; not exclusively by a closed organization, firm or individual.

It is possible that the first documented case of Open Content was with the Royal Society, where they aspired toward information sharing across the globe as a public enterprise. The commonality is difficult to dismiss. The words "open content" were first put together in this context by David Wiley, then a graduate student at Brigham Young University, who founded the OpenContent project and put together the first content-specific (non-software) license in 1998 with input from Eric Raymond, Tim O'Reilly, and others.

Like the debate between the titles "open source" and "free software", open content materials can also be described as free content, although technically they describe different things. For example, the Open Directory Project is open content but is not free content. The main difference between licenses is the definition of freedom; some licenses attempt to maximize the freedom of all potential recipients in the future while others maximize the freedom of the initial recipient. Much of the ideals of the open source movement was led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). One such application is their Open Courseware.

The related term common content is occasionally used to refer to Creative Commons-licensed works. This takes after the Common Content project, which is an attempt to collect as many such works as possible.