Who and how is entitled to use, train, develop with LEGO® Serious Play® methodology? Very simple! Anybody is entitled to – provided that they follow the LEGO Serious Play Open-source guideline.
LEGO Serious Play Open-source document p. 4 states: “LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® has been made available by the LEGO Group under a Creative Commons licence ‘Attribution Share Alike’: see http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/“.
This license means that you are free to:
- Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
- Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
- The licensor (LEGO) cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
You need to do this under the following terms:
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
It is as simple as: “1) You use, 2) you develop, 3) you pass it on to anybody else to use under the same terms.“
Anybody can do what they like with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® as long as they refer to original LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Open-source document and give exactly the same credit for the next developers. If you are in doubt how to best formulate it, you may just use the sentence:
“This approach/application/technique/model/roadmap/case builds on LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Open-source guideline made available by the LEGO® Group under a Creative Commons licence. Feel free to share and use under the same licence and enjoy playing seriously with bricks!” :-)
When you do that it is important to make a distinction to what is in the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Open Source Guide and what are proprietary materials. E.g. if somebody has created something, which has their original ideas and that they do not allow others to use. If you are in doubt then get in touch with the authors and make sure that you will not violate their rights nor trust.
It’s also worth noting that people who use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, or develop new applications with it must:
1. Adhere to LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® trademark guidelines (http://seriousplaypro.com/about/about-serious-play/lego%C2%AE-serious-play%E2%84%A2-and-trademark-guidelines/) and
2. Respect other peoples Intellectual Property (IP). A practical illustration: The Association of Master Trainers ‘7 Application Techniques’ Model is not part of the Open Source Guide. Those who trained with the Association of Master Trainers are free to use this as part of facilitating workshops, but may not use this to train other facilitators.
Both these conditions are important considerations when you use, develop and pass on!