[cc-community] What does NC means?

Peter Brink peter.brink at brinkdata.se
Mon Sep 17 11:39:25 EDT 2007


drew Roberts skrev:
> On Monday 17 September 2007 12:31 am, Peter Brink wrote:
>> Let's say that a author writes a poem then that this is a work. Then a
>> composer creates a music score so that one can sing the poem, this is a
>> new independent work. 
> 
> OK,  independent, so does the composer need permission from the author to make 
> this work? If no, I can see how the word independent properly applies. If 
> yes, then this must be some special legal meaning for the word independent 
> that does not line up too closely with everyday usage.
> 
>> Later a musician comes along and makes a nice 
>> arrangement of the music score, the arrangement as such can also be a
>> copyrightable work. It's independent from the music score. 
> 
> How in the world is this independent? That seems totally nonsensical in the 
> ordinary usage of the word. Can you explain how it comes to be an independent 
> work?

Remember that it's perfectly all right to be inspired by another work or 
to re-use the ideas, the information or the thoughts that are expressed 
in a given work when creating a new work. Such works are "new and 
independent" works. These works are not dependent upon someone else's 
copyright. An adaptation, on the other hand, is an example of an 
_dependent_ copyright. Do note that in Europe, as opposed to the US, the 
creator of an adaptation is the sole copyright holder of the rights to 
the adaptation. He do need permission from the copyright holder of the 
work that has been adapted when he wants to publish his adaptation.

An arrangement can be said to express the same ideas that are expressed 
in the score but with different means. One has to remember though that 
the style used, manner or method used when expressing an idea is not 
covered by copyright. Playing a piece of music in a sad manner is thus 
not covered by copyright. The copyright that you can get for an 
arrangement is therefore somewhat limited.

>> It's used to 
>> perform the music score which in turn is used to perform the poem.
> 
> Fine.
>> The performing artist gets a independent performance neighbouring right
>> (which is not a work) if the set of works are publicly performed. 
> 
> Performed? zEven if it is not fixed? And in the US, doesn't this work get a 
> (P) when fixed?

Fixation is not an requirement under the Berne convention...

>>
>> In Europe a product that can easily be independently double created
>> (such as most source code) is not considered original enough for it to
>> qualify for copyright protection.
> 
> So the GPL would be useless for those works? Any ideas as to the percentage of 
> GPL products on a place like sourceforge that would actually have no 
> copyright in Europe? (Wild guessing appreciated in the absence of good data 
> on this one as a start.)

In Sweden it's currently held that it's very difficult indeed to prove 
that someone has infringed upon (a claim of) copyright to a piece of 
source code. It's also held that one can claim a "selection" copyright 
to the combination of source code, help-files etc. that most binaries 
are made up of - thus preventing direct copying of binaries.

> 
> For the record. I am not in the US, nor from there, nor a citizen of there.
>> In Europe the producer of a sound recording receives an independent
>> neighbouring right to any recording he does. 
> 
> So, what does this right allow him to do / not do?

A neighbouring right is fairly similar to a copyright with some notable 
exceptions. Neighbouring rights are not protected against adaptations 
and the duration of the protection is much shorter.

>
>> There is no requirement of 
>> originality. This is thus _not_ a copyright (since a copyrightable work
>> needs to be original). The duration of the right is 50 years counting
>> from the publication date. The producer needs to secure a permission to
>> make the recording from the copyright holder of the work being recorded.
> 
> So, on a BY-SA work, how would this right be handled? Presumably??? this right 
> would not have to be BY-SA since there is no copyright??? Or did I miss some 
> esoteric language that I did not get the import of in my reading of the 
> license?

In the 3.0 version of CC-licenses phonograms are included in the 
definition of "work". In the various European ports "work" has been 
defined as either a copyrightable work or a neighbouring right. So 
neighbouring rights are covered by the license.

/Peter Brink


More information about the cc-community mailing list