[cc-community] Not sure does cc apply to a copy or 'original' work
Peter Brink
peter.brink at brinkdata.se
Mon Jun 2 13:04:57 EDT 2008
drew Roberts skrev:
> On Monday 02 June 2008 10:16, Peter Brink wrote:
>> drew Roberts skrev:
[snip]
>> Exclusive and non-exclusive are fairly well defined legal terms.
>>
>> "EXCLUSIVE, rights. Debarring one from participating in a thing. An
>> exclusive right or privilege, is one granted to a person to do a thing,
>> and forbidding all others to do the same. A patent right or copyright,
>> are of this kind."
>>
>> An exclusive license is the same as a total transfer of all rights from
>> A to B.
>
> Surely not. I can give an exclusive on some rights only. Or some rights only
> for some regions, etc. Exclusive surely doesn't equate to a transfer of
> copyright. Your language seems to imply this.
An exclusive license is not exclusive unless it covers all rights a
copyright holder has. So issuing an exclusive license is, in practice,
the same as a transfer a copyright from A to B.
I may have confused you when I used the term "exclusive" to state that
the publisher got a monopoly on publishing X in print. The deal between
A and B is really a non-exclusive license. B gets a limited set of A:s
rights. The copyright holder is able to slice and dice her rights pretty
much as she likes and this can of course from time to time create a real
mess.
>> There is nothing (baring other existing agreements that she is bound by)
>> that restricts the licensor from issuing whatever other licenses she
>> sees fit.
>
> This is the case in your example though. Since A has already given B the
> exclusive on print, A cannot now issue a cc license on the same work at all.
> This would conflict with the exclusive agreement that B already has.
Well, as I said A would be wise to inform her publisher. She could argue
that since the license is non-exclusive it allows her to issue a license
that only gives a right to use the form of the work that has a license
statement attached to it. That is the CC license would only apply to the
pdf-file and any derivatives of it. B might or might not agree...
The point is that as a licensee you can really only with certainty use
copies of works that have a license statement in or on it. If you find a
copy of a work that you know is licensed under CC in another form but
lacks a license statement, it _may_ be so that that version of the work
is licensed under a propriety license.
/Peter Brink
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