[cc-community] Contradictory meanings of "non-commercial"?

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Thu Feb 7 11:36:14 EST 2008


First let me say that Just as in english, free has the two meanings that cause 
so much discussion when it comes to Free Software (libre and gratis), in 
english, we seem to be talking two meanings for commercial here:

Commercial: 
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+commercial&btnG=Google+Search

1. a business activity by a person or a business
2. for profit
3. a paid announcement to sell products, ideas, services, etc.



On Thursday 07 February 2008 11:00, Fred Benenson wrote:
> On Feb 7, 2008 9:43 AM, Terry Hancock <hancock at anansispaceworks.com> wrote:
> > Fred Beneson wrote:
> > > See the 76 ball case or the virgin case (where a NC license would have
> > > saved everyone a lot of trouble) or the Dutch tabloid case involving
> > > Adam Curry.
> >
> > IMHO, those last two would be abuses of NC licensing (I don't know what
> > the "76 ball case" is).
>
> See : http://lessig.org/blog/2006/09/autoweek_on_come_on.html
>
> and
>
> http://lessig.org/blog/2006/09/update_on_autoweek.html
>
> > The problem wasn't "commercial use", it was use
> > of someone's likeness without permission.
>
> You are allowed to use someone's likeness without their permission so long
> as the use is not commercial. 

But the use example you give below is commercial in the NC sense. You 
specifically mention that he was allowed to make and SELL his art. The sell 
part would violate an NC license.

NC is commercial in the sense of for business or profit and not in the sense 
of for advertising purposes. Although the for advertising purposes could fall 
within the for business in most cases. Adversitments for a non-profit would 
perhaps complicate the issue though.

> See the Philip-Lorca diCorcia lawsuit, where 
> he was using images of people on the street in contemporary art
> photographs. Despite the serious objections of his subjects to the use of
> their likeness, he was allowed to make and sell his art :
> http://www.nyc24.org/2006/issue3/story02/
>
> It is my understanding that model releases typically reserve the commercial
> rights to the use of a particular likeness of a person. While NC probably
> doesn't cover (I am not a lawyer and have much less understanding of
> release law) all of the cases where a release is needed, it seems to cover
> some of the more substantial cases (using someone's license in a Virgin
> advertisement) while reserving the right to use a person's likeness in art
> (a contemporary photograph.)

I am confused by how you are using the reserving rights language in this post 
though.
>
> The CC licenses expressly do
>
> > not confer rights to likenesses, and so the users should've known they
> > didn't have those kinds of rights.
>
> This is true, but as I said above, the NC license seems to prevent uses
> that model releases are required for.
>
> > What would've "saved everyone a lot of trouble" would be standardized
> > publicity rights forms and (more visible) standard disclaimers for works
> > which have no such permissions (the Flickr CC search engine really ought
> > to have a tick box for "publicity rights granted (or unnecessary)" along
> > with "commercial use" and "copying").
>
> I agree -- standard publicity rights forms would be a good idea, though I'm
> still not convinced a copy-left style publicity rights release form is a
> good idea.
>
>
> Best,
>
> F
>
> > Cheers,
> > Terry
> >
> > --
> > Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
> > Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > cc-community mailing list
> > cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
> > http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community
>
> !DSPAM:47ab2bed143201804284693!


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