Created by Professor Adam J. McKee, the OER-QMS License "is inspired by the GNU licenses used by software developers and the Creative Commons licenses. These licenses, however, result in many iterations of content that are not updated and corrected as time passes. The purpose of this license is to offer content creators the right to maintain a single, high-quality source that they control and maintain such that quality can be preserved over time."
Creative Commons is a non profit organization which specializes in licenses and other technical tools which allow an author/creator to give permission for their work to be:
Creative Commons asserts that it is NOT anti-copyright and states:
"CC licenses are copyright licenses, and depend on the existence of copyright to work. CC licenses are legal tools that creators and other rights holders can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Those who want to make their work available to the public for limited kinds of uses while preserving their copyright may want to consider using CC licenses. Others who want to reserve all of their rights under copyright law should not use CC licenses."
Check out the University of Pittsburgh Library System's Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights Toolkit for a more detailed look at copyright, creative commons, intellectual property rights, and what users and creators need to know.
Brooklyn College Librarian Sheena Philogenehas created an openly licensed tutorial covering all the basics of Creative Commons Licensing.