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

Peter Brink peter.brink at brinkdata.se
Mon Jun 2 14:32:55 EDT 2008


drew Roberts skrev:
> On Monday 02 June 2008 13:04, Peter Brink wrote:
>> 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.
> 
> OK, so there needs to be some terminology clearing up but I think the 
> misunderstanding goes further.
> 
> I can sell print rights to a book toperson X for region Y (I want to say 
> exclusive, but perhaps that would be an incorrect term) and contract with 
> them that I will give no one else print rights for that region.
> 
> If I did that, I could not put my book under a cc license later as that would 
> violate my agreement with person X as the cc license will allow anyone to 
> print copies of my book.
> 
> Do you agree or disagree with this point I am making?

The answer depends on what license elements you choose. If it's a 
BY-NC-SA or BY-NC-ND license then it's not a clear cut case (since 
there's no commercial competition). If it's a BY-SA license _and_ 
someone in that region prints and distributes a printed version of the 
book - then X could have a case against you. In all other regions and 
for all other formats the author would be free to issue any license she 
please.

An author that wants to use a CC license needs to review his existing 
set of agreements and, if necessary, renegotiate previous agreements. 
These days many publishing contracts covers both in-print and electronic 
publishing as well as the right to sub-license and to authorize the 
publication of adaptations. So in practice an author would not be able 
to use a CC license without a go from the publisher.

In practice I don't see this as a great problem. If a copy of a work 
does not include a license statement people will assume it's ARR. This 
problem will really only come up when there are older editions of a work 
in circulation and then a licensed copy is issued. Are the older copies 
also covered by the license. I'd say: no they are not. As a general rule 
legal actions only take effect from one point in time and forward. 
Exceptions to this rule exists but they are almost always explicitly 
noted in the relevant legislation.

/Peter Brink


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