[cc-community] What does NC means?

Terry Hancock hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Sat Sep 15 14:06:15 EDT 2007


Milos Rancic wrote:
> If it is legal to put commercials on the NC content (and it seems that
> it is), is it legal to put NC content inside of some printed edition
> which is getting profit from commercials (and you may get that edition
> for free)?

Nope. Not according to the guidelines. If you make a profit, then you
are a "for profit organization" and you cannot use NC works. Period. "Do
not collect $200. Go straight to jail." :-)

> And if is so, what is the purpose of NC? Not to make profit by
> selling, but to make profit from commercials?

I think there might be some use in such a license. Maybe. But that's
evidently not the case for NC.

> If it is not, consider that NC is useful only on Internet and that
> only 1/6 of humans are *able* to use Internet. In this case I don't
> see any valid reason for supporting such license except for supporting
> people who think that it is fancy to have CC logo on their site.

And here you put your finger on the problem with NC licenses.

The truth is that NC licenses have EXACTLY ONE practical use: you
can use them to legally distribute sample copies of your work which
people can share *at their own expense* (no commercials, no copying
fees, etc). This is done as free advertising to help sell your work,
which you still profit from selling copies of or licensing to
commercial-advertising driven channels.

IOW, it is not a "community" or a "commons" license. It's just a niche
license for commercial content creators to use. It is not about helping
the 5/6ths of the world that you appear to be concerned about. It is
just another way to make money from your creative works via alternative
marketing and "hyperdistribution" to use some industry buzzwords.

You might also appreciate the irony of the naming: the CC
"non-commercial" license is rational only for COMMERCIAL content
creators. So the name is really deceptive. It should really have some
more appropriate name like "commercial use reserved" -- something which
would remind users that the license is only meaningful if the copyright
owner is trying to profit from the work commercially.

This is why some people think that NC (and ND) licenses should not be
advertised under the same "Creative Commons" banner as By and By-SA
licenses. The point being that these licenses have such different
missions that they can't meaningfully be marketed together.

If you want to create works non-commercially, without expecting direct
financial remuneration and you want the advantages of collective editing
and improvement of the work, and you want to be able to distribute it
more widely, AND you want to avoid the work being leeched and
sequestered into proprietary works which will compete with your
freely-created community project -- THEN you want to be using a
"ShareAlike" license, NOT a "non-commercial" license.

Cheers,
Terry

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



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