What is Attribution? (And Why It’s Essential!)

This coffee break focuses on the following learning objectives:

What is attribution?

So you’ve decided to use an openly licensed work. Awesome! Now what?! The next step is to acknowledge, or attribute, the OER you are using. Attribution is a legal and ethical responsibility as well as a key academic integrity principle. It is also a cornerstone condition of open licenses. Attribution is the foundation for each of the Creative Commons (CC) licenses; review this past coffee break for a refresher on the CC licenses.

Remember, the author who shares their work with an open license is giving permission in advance for you to use that work, as long as you credit their work. The responsibility of the author is to make their choice of open license visible on the work they are sharing; the responsibility of the user is to give credit when subsequently using the openly licensed work.

What does an attribution statement look like?

There is no one correct way to provide an attribution statement, but there are required elements to include in an attribution statement. One best practice is to use the T-A-L method of attribution, as detailed below, that includes all of the minimum required elements. (Note: Others also use the acronym T-A-S-L, with “S” for Source, which is the equivalent of Link.)

• T = Title
• A = Author (creator)
• L = License & Link (link to the resource, author, and license deed, if available)

If you don’t have all of the T-A-L information about the resource, do the best you can and include as much detail as possible in the attribution statement. You can also add additional information, such as Organization, Publisher, Publication Date, etc.

The attribution statement for the following image is a good example of a statement as it includes all of the T-A-L information with appropriate links provided:

• Title = “Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco”
• Author (creator) = “Timothy Vollmer” hyperlinked to his profile page in Flickr
• License = CC BY 4.0
  • Note: the author originally shared this image under a CC BY 2.0 license and later added a CC BY 4.0 license; use the most current license provided by the author
• Link = The image is hyperlinked to its original Flickr page, the author is linked to their Flickr profile page, and the CC BY 4.0 license is also hyperlinked to its license deed

How do you attribute an openly licensed work that you’ve adapted?

When a work is adapted, changes need to be indicated in the attribution statement along with the creator of the original work. An example is demonstrated in the attribution statement for the image below:

Creating an attribution statement with the Open Attribution Builder tool online

Open Washington’s Open Attribution Builder, developed by SBCTC and shared under a CC BY 4.0 license, is a helpful tool for building license attribution statements. As you fill out the online form, the app automatically generates the attribution for you. You can then copy-and-paste this attribution statement into any work, such as the footer of a Word document, cover slide of a PowerPoint, image caption, etc.

Here’s a screenshot at using the Open Attribution Builder tool to create the attribution statement for the “Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco” original cupcake photo above:

Creating an attribution statement with the Open Attribution Builder tool in Canvas

The Open Attribution Builder tool is also embedded directly within Canvas. Here’s a short video by the TCC Library that demonstrates how to attribute OER textbooks and course materials in Canvas. The video below begins at 3:18 minutes, with a demo for how to use the Open Attribution Builder tool in Canvas.

Case studies: Attributions & copyright violations

The importance of attribution was demonstrated in the following two court cases, one from the U.S. and one from Germany. (This also demonstrates that open licenses are globally recognized!)

Court case study #1

Pierce v. Lifezette, Inc.
USA, 2021

This case from the United States focused on the use of a photograph of Elizabeth Warren by Tim Pierce, who uploaded a photo to Flickr, and gave the photo a CC BY 2.0 license that requires users to give the photographer credit and indicate if any changes were made to the photo.

Lifezette, who owns and operates the website “www.lifezette.com,” used Pierce’s photos without attribution or permission and altered the photos on multiple occasions.

Pierce filed a copyright infringement complaint against and served Lifezette, but Lifezette never responded. Pierce filed a motion for default judgment and requested damages.

The court granted default judgment for copyright infringement and awarded Pierce $139,000 in statutory damages and held that Lifezette is permanently enjoined from using the photo without abiding by the terms of the license.

Course case study #2

Gerlach vs. DVU
Germany, 2010

This case from Germany concerned the use of a photograph of politician Thilo Sarrazin by Nina Gerlach. The photograph was released under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license and subsequently used on the website of the German political party, DVU, without any attribution statement.

Gerlach first sent a notice and takedown letter, which the party ignored. Gerlach then sought a preliminary injunction against the unauthorized publication of the picture.

The court granted the injunction as the court found that the license terms were breached.

References & Attributions

The OER Coffee Break series has original content and adaptations by Jennifer Snoek-Brown, OER Librarian, Tacoma Community College, and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

• Content & activity adapted from:
  • “Attribution and using copyright material in OER” from CAUL Open Educational Resources Professional Development Program: Foundations by Council of Australian University Librarians, licensed under CC BY SA 4.0
  • “Adapting, Creating & Sharing OER” from Open Educational Resources: Basics & Beyond by Oklahoma Council for Online Learning Excellence (COLE) Member Volunteers, licensed under CC BY 4.0
• Video source from “How to cite and attribute OER textbooks and course materials” by Tacoma Community College Library is licensed under  CC BY SA 4.0
• Additional content sources from:
  • “Creative Commons Legal Database” by Creative Commons is licensed under CC BY 4.0
  • Open Attribution Builder tool by WA SBCTC is licensed under CC BY 4.0