[cc-community] Not sure does cc apply to a copy or 'original' work
drew Roberts
zotz at 100jamz.com
Sun Jun 1 09:16:58 EDT 2008
On Saturday 31 May 2008 18:46:02 Asheesh Laroia wrote:
> On Sat, 31 May 2008, Branislav Nakic wrote:
> > Yes, I went too far with that probably. But what happens when I sell the
> > higher resolution copy, can the buyer distribute it further?
>
> So copyright applies to fixed works in a tangible medium of expression,
> and it applies to making copies of that work.
>
> Given that, here is what you are saying:
>
> The fixed JPEG data that you give out, which happen to be low resolution,
> and grants permission for some re-uses under a Creative Commons license,
> somehow allows someone to make copies of a *different* bag of JPEG data,
> which happens to be higher resolution, fixed in a tangible medium of
> expression.
>
> I can see no justification for this claim. Copyright does not apply to
> the idea in your head that the two files you created are similar in
> origin; it applies to the fixed expression of that idea in the JPEG data.
> So how can one file affect the other?
>
> Therefore, I see no way to justify an answer of "Yes" to this question,
> and must answe it "No", there is no permission to license or sell or
> distribute the higher-resolution version.
>
> > What if he passes it on and it is used for derivative work in such a way
> > that it is impossible to know which copy was used?
>
> Well, in that case, he gets to claim he used the low resolution one, and
> if you can't say otherwise, then it's as good as true that he did. (In
> that case, how does it matter?)
>
> This is my opinion, not anyone else's, and I'm not a lawyer. This is a
> time when a lawyer's understanding of the law, even if not necessarily
> given as part of professional legal advice, could turn this conversation
> one way or another with decisiveness that none of us can have.
>
> Still, I think my argument makes good sense from what I understand about
> "the big C".
>
> Fred wrote this:
> >> But to the extent the copyright is not changed when resizing a
> >> photograph, it doesn't seem to me that there can be multiple licenses
> >> for different versions.
>
> "When resizing a photograph" - do you mean an analog one, where copyright
> is not implicated when one cuts a physical object with scissors? Or do
> you mean a digital photograph?
>
> Either way, I don't understand the importance of that here. The question
> is not about resizing but about permissions to distribute.
>
> I have never heard anyone make this claim: "Amazon allowed me to download
> a 32 kilobit per second MP3 of a song as sample, so I am therefore
> automatically granted permission to obtain a pristine lossless copy of the
> source data, the audio CD". Furthermore, I have never heard this claim:
> "I am Amazon.com, and I legitimately obtained a license to distribute 32
> kilobit MP3 files as samples to everyone for free. So now I automatically
> have permission to find the pristine original copy, make copies of that,
> and distribute them to everyone for free." Yet Fred, it sounds like you
> are making that claim; in the analogy, the pristine original copy is the
> high-resolution version, and the "samples" are the CC-licensed
> lower-resolution version.
>
> Because copyright is about *copies* of bits or other fixed expressions of
> a work, not personal ideas of a work's lineage, I don't see how one can
> justify the claim that a CC license on a low-res version would grant
> permissions for a recipient of a high-res version not under a CC license.
The argument goes something like this:
The cc license is to the work and not to an instance of the work.
The law does not consider the low-res and the high-res photos seperate
copyrightable works but rather one work.
Hence, when you get a license to that work as defined by law, you have a
license to that work, no matter what form you happen to get a copy of it in.
If I remember correctly, I have been given both opinions rather forcefully
here on one of the lists I watch (licenses and community) at different times
in the past.
I think it might be worth finding some resolution to this and putting it in a
faq,
So far, this is all I could find on google but I know there should be more:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2007-March/005287.html
Hmmm. From that it looks like Mia thinks the license would only apply to an
instance of the work and not to all instances of the work...
all the best,
drew
>
> Dual-licensing software enterprises like MySQL also take advantage of the
> fact that these permissions do not flow the way I think people are saying
> they do. It's not as if MySQL's commercial version is automatically GPL'd
> because MySQL ships related (but not identical - indeed, lesser) code that
> is GPL'd. Instead, this is the crux of dual licensing, and CC licenses
> are non-exclusive, so they can take part in a dual licensing regime.
>
> Hoping to resolve this with clarity,
>
> -- Asheesh.
>
> P.S. I don't represent anyone's opinions except my own, which is probably
> good news for everyone.
>
> --
> And I alone am returned to wag the tail.
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