[cc-community] CC Dragged Into Lawsuit

Gavin Baker gavin at gavinbaker.com
Sat Sep 22 17:30:23 EDT 2007


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This also came up on the iCommons list recently, so I wanted to
share a few links here:

http://lessig.org/blog/2007/09/on_the_texas_suit_against_virg.html
http://joi.ito.com/archives/2007/09/22/the_texas_suit_against_virgin_and_creative_commons.html
http://www.gavinbaker.com/2007/09/22/lets-all-sue-creative-commons/

My post contains some practical suggestions for CC, which I'll paste
here -- what do you think?

* On the "Things to Think About"[1] page, add a point about rights other
than copyright. Be clear that the right to use the copyright in certain
ways does not invalidate any claims about privacy, publicity,
defamation, trade secrets... there's a lot that could be entangled here.

* In the license chooser[2], after an individual has selected which
rights they wish to grant, the user is brought to a page that says "Here
is the license you've chosen". This would be a very appropriate time to
reiterate the terms of the license chosen, either by displaying the
human readable license inline or (preferably) by displaying a shorter
summary oriented to the author. e.g. "You waive your right to prevent or
control commercial uses of this work, including the right to be
compensated for any commercial use." The page could also say, "If this
isn't what you intended, go back and pick a different license, or click
here to learn more about our licenses."

* In the human-readable license summary, along with the disclaimer that
the license doesn't affect the user's fair use or fair dealing rights,
add a disclaimer that says "This license only applies to copyright in
the work and not to any other rights." This could also be a time to
point toward what's not protected by any right: e.g. "This license only
applies to copyright in the work, insofar as it exists, and not to any
other rights." This might make it clearer to the user that
non-copyrightable material, such as ideas, concepts, facts, and works
which have passed into the public domain cannot acquire any additional
restrictions under a CC license.

* Add a disclaimer in the lawyer-readable license to state, in legal
terms, the above.

* Since this subject is recently in the news, post a brief summary or
FAQ on the CC blog reiterating points like "What is a commercial
use?"[3] and "What other legal issues might be entangled in a
copyrighted work?" This might also be a good time to address the
question "How can I protect myself against getting burned by using an
apparently CC-licensed work?"

[1] http://creativecommons.org/about/think/
[2] http://creativecommons.org/license/
[3] http://wiki.creativecommons.org/NonCommercial_Guidelines

jonathon wrote:
> Fred wrote:
> 
>> If the photographer had used a NC license this lawsuit and problem wouldn't have arose.
> 
> FWIW, take a look at http://www.flickr.com/groups/379879@N24/
> 
> Virgin Mobile Pty Ltd did use photographs that have a BY-SA license.
> 
> Alison Chang's picture currently has an _All Rights Reserved_ tag on it.
> The photographer claims that the original license was CC-BY-NC 2.0
> Somebody else claimed that the original license was CC-BY 2.0
> 
> The major issues are that Virgin Mobile PTY LTD did not have a model
> release, and the model is under 18.
> 
> xan
> 
> jonathon

- --
Gavin Baker
http://www.gavinbaker.com/
gavin at gavinbaker.com
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