This article seeks to introduce the complex world of open-content licences against the backdrop of the massive expansion of copyright in recent years and the increasing threat posed by copyright licences to the world of cultural production. The world of open content has been inspired by the free software movement and hence this article begins with an overview of the conceptual challenges posed to copyright by free software movement. It then moves into an analysis of the ways in which the terms of free software may be understood for the purposes of cultural production and what such a translation may entail. We then go through a brief survey of the history of opencontent licences and discuss a few routes through which we may read licences not only as legal documents but also as cultural documents.