[cc-community] What does NC means?
Giorgos Cheliotis
giorgos at smu.edu.sg
Mon Oct 29 23:19:26 EST 2007
Just a thought: perhaps it will be helpful if we decide someday to move away from defining "commercial" as "making profit" and focus only on the revenue side of the revenue-cost-profit relationship by defining "commercial" as "making revenue" or "attempting to make revenue". This is easier to define and more importantly easier to verify. Many "for profit" activities end up not being profitable, but this does not mean they are not commercial.
And then, if there is broad agreement in the community, use by organizations with an official non-profit status, or other specific uses of the content not already covered by jurisdictional fair use/fair dealing clauses, can be exempted from the above rule.
giorgos
________________________________
From: cc-community-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org on behalf of jonathon
Sent: Tue 10/30/2007 10:44 AM
To: cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [cc-community] What does NC means?
Elizabeth wrote:
> I don't mean to make this topic drag on,
Every couple of months the issue of "what does NC allow" comes up.
Usually somebody points to yet another interpretation of the NC
guidelines allow, and what they prohibit.
> What if you're a non-profit organization
And this is still the blurriest part of license.
>What if you're a for-profit educational institution making use of a work?
Creative Commons guidelines: No.
MIT: Yes, within specific limitations;
> (And there are those CC commercial guidelines out somewhere..I think.)
Quoting from an earlier message of mine about "NC" licenses.
(With a couple of additional comments.)
There is a theory that allows a 501(c)3 to sell the hymnal for a
profit, and still be "non commercial".
There is a second theory that equates "non commercial" with "will not
make a profit". By that standard, the vast majority of movies that
Hollywood releases each year are "non commercial". (Hollywood movie
accounting is designed to show a net loss. Within the last decade,
video and DVD releases have made such accounting extremely difficult
to successfully do.)
A variant of that theory equates "non commercial" with "may not make
a profit"..
A forth theory of "non commercial" is "may recoup expenses, but
nothing more than that".
A fifth theory of "non commercial" is "may not recoup any expenses".
A sixth theory of "non commercial" is "outside of a commercial context".
A seventh theory of "non commercial" is "gratis distribution to
recipient is mandatory."
Only with latter three theories, is there the possibility that one will
not recoup more than one spent, and hence show either a net, or a
gross profit.
LLoyd wrote:
>there is a clear use of the work for commercial purposes. Section D
in the guidelines cover that:
And the Creative Commons Guidelines are just that. Guidelines.
Guidelines that conflict with the guidelines issued by MIT concerning
what the CC-NC license allows and what it prohibits.
Outside of what I dubbed "international case law for creative commons
licenses", there is nothing "obvious and unambiguous."
xan
jonathon
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