[cc-community] What does NC means?

jonathon jonathon.blake at gmail.com
Sun Sep 16 16:41:33 EDT 2007


Giorgos wrote:

> Although I understand that the definition of NC can be tricky,

Not can be.  It Is tricky.
Probably the most critical word in the Non-Commercial clause, and it
is not defined,

> I don't see why there is strong resentment for NC licenses on the part of some of us in the community.

The major reason is that NC licenses are not congruent with libre.
The minor reason is that NC licenses don't accomplish what people
think that they accomplish.

> Like it or not, there are many people out there who are keen to allow for free sharing, distribution and possibly also remixing of their work

If "free sharing" means "gratis", then yes. But how much of the
distribution, or packaging costs be recouped by the content
distributor?

> as long as it is not commercial in nature.

And what constitutes "non-commercial in nature"?

MIT has one set of guidelines. CC Foundation has another set of
guidelines.   Whilst those two aren't quite mutually exclusive, toss
in the guidelines used by the Dutch collecting society, you have
mutually exclusive interpretations for pretty much every phrase in the
NC clause.

Going by the Creative Commons Foundation Guidelines:

The economics of theatre preclude the use of anything with an NC
license as an NC work. (You have to treat it as ARR, and pay royalties
on it.  Now do you want to track down some semi-nameless soul, or use
something listed by Dramatist's Play Service, Music Theatre
International, etc?)

Other performing arts are in a similar situation.

> By choosing for example a BY-NC-ND license, an author makes the important step of legitimizing file-sharing of his/her work, as the license at the very least
allows for non-commercial sharing.

All the BY-NC-ND license might allow me to do, is toss the  file onto
Torrent Spy.

If the object is "free" file sharing, then BY-SA or BY are far more
appropriate. They don't carry the unclear baggage that BY-NC-ND
carries.

> but the important difference is that when an author voluntarily chooses a BY-NC-ND license, you can share that work all you want, *legally*.

You _might_ be able to share the content, if the format the content
creator used is shareable. But if it is something that is not
intrinsically shareable, you're out of luck. (EG: Ballet, or other
dance.)

>licensed instead under BY-NC-ND (unlikely, but just for the sake of
argument) we would have effectively legitimized file-sharing.

Both Sweden and Canada have rulings that file sharing of a copyright
work need not be a copyright violation.   The US is on the opposite
side of that fence.

> Wouldn't that be some form of progress towards a more free culture?

No.  BY-NC-ND is a "Your Rights Removed End User License Agreement.
It is not  as obnoxious as some EULAs, but that does not mean that it
can in any way, shape, or form be equated with either libre, or
gratis.

> Also, on whether SA is all you need: Larry has explained a few times that NC is not so much needed for software, and is therefore not used by FSF,

NC inflicts a restraint on a field of endeavor,and hence is
non-free.This is why FSF doesn't have any NC licenses.

It has nothing to do with the utility/need for software, and
everything to do with libre.

> the SA constraint only kicks in when a derivative work is produced, to dictate how that derivative should be licensed, so it does not protect the original work in its original form.

I can argue that one both ways.

> If we remove NC from the licenses we will effectively shut the doors of CC to a huge number of authors who are prepared to give their audience some freedom, but wish to preserve some avenues of commercial exploitation for themselves.

a) NC requires the collection of royalty payments by the composer, or
arranger, or lyricist, or any combination thereof.

b)  "commercial exploitation" is not the only reason for using the NC license.

>That would be a mistake and probably lead to the marginalization of
the movement.

What is the objection to marginalization of those who are not in the
libre community?  Especially since they harm the cause of the libre
community.

Both NC and ND are non-libre licenses that damage the libre community.

> If, on the other hand, the main problem is that NC is not defined clearly enough,

Putting a definition in the license that did not rely on saying not-x
is "that which is not x" would be a start.

>those who know better or think they know better will have to work
towards convincing the rest that they should adopt another license,

The first place to start, is for Creative Commons to clearly describe
the effects of each license, for each medium.

>liberal licensing by removing the most popular license types from the
CC framework BY-NC-ND and BY-NC-SA)

Those licenses appear to be the most popular, because the "human
readable format" is, shall we say, misleading. (The implications of
the human readable code are contradicted by the implications of the
legal code.)

>will just make these authors leave CC.

If the objective of Creative Commons is for libre, then NC and ND are
incompatible with that goal.
If the objective of Creative Commons is for gratis, then NC is the
only onethat is compatible with that goal.

Asa brand name, Creative Commons License is meaningless, because it
can indicate anything from a license that is both libre and gratis, to
one that is neither gratis, nor libre.


Peter wrote:

>Defining non-commercial is IMHO not, as has been suggested, such a
tricky issue.

If it wasn't a tricky issue, then maybe you can explain why Creative
Commons Foundation, and MIT have very different definitions of what
the term "non commercial" means. Both of these organizations use the
same legal system, and are in the same legal jurisdiction. (I'll grant
that they are indifferent federal court districts, and the 9th
district is a law unto itself.)

> Many jurisdictions probably have fairly precise definitions of what is meant by "commercial".  Non-commercial is then simply "activities that are not commercial".

"probably have"?  Try "do not have".

>The non-commercial guidelines found there strikes me as being
specifically targeted at a US audience.

Considering that it was developed in the US, that is to be expected.

The only thing that surprises me, is that the first law suits were not
filed in the US.

> Authors from the rest of the world would do better to investigate how "commercial" is defined where they live.

When it can be found.

xan

jonathon


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