[cc-community] An easy way to notify licensors about new license versions

Terry Hancock hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Mon Dec 10 10:08:47 EST 2007


drew Roberts wrote:
> I think we may have our wires crossed somewhere. I think the person I was 
> responding to earlier on was talking of using a CC license or a proposed CC 
> license and then giving additional permissions in a statement seperate from 
> the license itself.

Not in this thread. There was someone who was trying to propose
additional restrictions on the license in an earlier thread, that I recall.

There was also a person who suggested allowing uses outside of those
allowed by SA, NC, or ND clauses for specific purposes or users. But
that's still just an additional license -- it's just a very short and
simple license with specific limits on who it can apply to (which is
actually the norm for copyright licenses -- big complex licenses that
apply to everyone are the exceptional case).

> I wonder if additional permissions can be relied upon in light if the "entire 
> agreement" bit in the license itself.

What can't work is the additional restrictions. For example, someone
suggested that they could use such a statement to grant a "CC-By-SA"
license conditioned on the use of the work (effectively trying to
redefine their own NC clause).

As a test case, consider a license grant that looks like this:

"""
You may use this work under the terms of the CC-By-SA 3.0 license,
provided that you promise not to use it in nuclear weapons research.
"""

Okay, so I say "I promise", and accept the CC-By-SA license. But the
CC-By-SA license says it is the "whole agreement". So it *replaces* the
grants statement above.

At that point, the licensor has explicitly disclaimed any ability to
hold me to that promise legally.

You can always rescind an existing agreement by making a new one, and
that's what happens here. But if that's going to be true, then it's just
silly to demand such promises in the first place.

However, if I give you additional license *permissions*, that's different:

"""
You may use this work under the terms of the CC-By-SA 3.0 license, or
you may remit $300 in cash or check to me to purchase an exclusive
single CPU license, or you may embed it in proprietary works solely for
academic use or in promoting alternative energy technology.
"""

Here, the user is given a choice of three licenses:

1) CC-By-SA 3.0
2) A proprietary per-copy license for $300
3) A use-restricted license for academic use or
   use in promoting alternative energy

Now this DOES work, because only if you choose the first choice do you
rescind the grant statement, and that becomes the "whole agreement".
Otherwise, the (very brief) license statement is contained in the
statement. The $300 option may also have additional terms which apply at
the time the contract is made. The use-restricted license is probably
the worst of the three, because it's too vague and legally almost
anything could be made to apply.

It would probably be smarter to include the three license alternatives
in separate documents with the details spelled out, and refer to them in
the license grant statement. IOW, it's better to use distinct licenses.

But you can always view an additional permission as a separate license
grant.

Cheers,
Terry

Who is still not a lawyer. Advice is strictly at your own risk. :-)

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com



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