[cc-community] Not sure does cc apply to a copy or 'original' work

Terry Hancock hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Sun Jun 1 15:25:34 EDT 2008


Branislav Nakic wrote:
> Let's say I license my photos with cc-by license and upload them in lower
> quality on flickr. Someone comes up and says he needs a higher quality copy
> and that he is willing to pay for it. So we make an agreement and he
> recieves the high quality copy.
> 
> Now, we are not sure what happens later with that higher quality copy. Is it
> licensed also under the cc-by license so that that someone can distribute it
> further or does it fall only under the separate agreement? Basically we are
> not sure what we are licensing, the copy which is in this case only
> recognisable by its resolution, jpeg compression, meta data etc.  or the
> actual photo taken at 'that' place at 'that' time by 'that' person. What if
> the guy who got the high quality copy gives it to someone else (lower
> quality still being licenced under cc-by) who scales it down or change it so
> much that it is difficult to determine the source of the photo?

We've given you legal and community viewpoints on this, but let me give
you a business viewpoint: exploit the doubt.

As has been mentioned in this thread, no one is really certain which
interpretation applies, and there is a possibility that it depends on
your jurisdiction. No one will really know until it comes to court (and
even then, you only know for sure in that jurisdiction). No commercial
user is going to want that doubt.

That's why it hasn't come to court.

So, exploit that. Make it clear what your understanding is (that the
high-res version is under a separate commercial license and NOT under
CC-By). And do business.

If it comes to court, and the court disagrees with you in the end, THEN
find a new business model.

After all, museums exploited doubt about the licensing of photos of PD
paintings for DECADES before anyone took them to court over it. In the
meantime, they made a lot of money.

The law is just a codification of a convention. The perception of law is
the convention by which business generally operates, and the fit is
imprecise. But that's just life -- nothing is certain.

Ask a lawyer, and they'll find 10 different ways to look at a problem
leading to 10 different outcomes -- because that's their job!

Businesses, OTOH, operate to make money. They don't care what precisely
is legal, they care about avoiding lawsuits over what they are doing. If
it makes enough sense that no one ever sues them over it, that's as good
as it being legally true.

Cheers,
Terry

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com



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