[cc-community] CC-BY content usable under GFDL

Matthew J. Agnello matt.agnello at gmail.com
Sun May 4 12:15:55 EDT 2008


>> Since CC BY has no license requirements other than attribution, I
>> would think it could be used in any work as long as attribution is
>> given, including ARR work.
> There can still be problems,can't there?... See the Original BSD and  
> GPL
> issues:
>
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#OriginalBSD
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

Yeah, the "obnoxious BSD advertising clause" seems a little  
ridiculous. I suppose there can always be practical problems when  
choosing to use content from one license within the context of  
another. I'm not sure what you mean specifically by pointing out the  
original BSD problem; do you mean CC BY and original BSD could produce  
a long list of authors (or advertising clauses), or other license  
requirements that would be practically impossible to follow?

I agree that might be the case, but I think a user willing to go  
through with those requirements gains the legal right to use a  
particular work in any way as long as he or she follows all the  
license requirements. To clarify, I'm talking about situations where  
you use CC BY licensed content in a particular work and license it  
with some other license. You might do this because you like the other  
license better, or you're using work from another copyleft license and  
have to comply with those requirements. I don't see anything legally  
wrong with doing this. IANAL, but let me give my reasoning below.

Assuming the license requirements did not conflict with one another, I  
believe you could use each license's work together provided you fill  
ALL the license requirements of each.

Let's say we have some content using two different licenses, CopyLeft  
and NonCopyleft. Because the license requirements don't overlap, using  
the two together shouldn't be a problem as long as you fulfill both  
sets of requirements.

FinalWork = SomeContent( CopyLeft ) + SomeContent( NonCopyLeft );
FinalWork.Requirements = CopyLeft.Requirements() +  
NonCopyLeft.Requirements();

However, because one of CopyLeft's requirements is that you license  
under CopyLeft, we have to do that.

FinalWork.License = CopyLeft( FinalWork );

But let's say we're using some content using two non-copyleft licenses  
called NonCopyLeftA and NonCopyLeftB. Assuming the license  
requirements do not conflict, the requirements to use these works will  
be as follows:

FinalWork = SomeContent( NonCopyLeftA ) + SomeContent( NonCopyLeftB );
FinalWork.Requirements = NonCopyLeftA.Requirements(); +  
NonCopyLeftB.Requirements();

In this case, neither license has a requirement that the final work be  
licensed a certain way. So, we can license our final work however we  
want.

FinalWork.License = ARR( FinalWork );

So, the list of license requirements might become excessively long and  
practically impossible as we add more licenses and therefore more  
requirements, but as long as the final work's requirements has one or  
fewer copyleft requirements and no one requirement conflicts with any  
other, I believe it's legally possible to use non-copyleft work under  
any license you want.

Again, IANAL, this is not legal advice (only C++).

Best,
// Matt

--
Matthew J. Agnello
http://hungryfilmmaker.com/
< matt.agnello at gmail.com >

On May 4, 2008, at 8:37 AM, drew Roberts wrote:

> On Sunday 04 May 2008 11:26:41 Matthew J. Agnello wrote:
>> Since CC BY has no license requirements other than attribution, I
>> would think it could be used in any work as long as attribution is
>> given, including ARR work. Hopefully the Wikimedia's request for true
>> interoperability will finally get filled by CC and FSF; I know it's
>> been on the table for some time now.
>
> There can still be problems,can't there?... See the Original BSD and  
> GPL
> issues:
>
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/license-list.html#OriginalBSD
> http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html
>
>>
>> Best,
>> // Matt
>
> all the best,
>
> drew
>>
>>
>> --
>> Matthew J. Agnello
>> http://hungryfilmmaker.com/
>> < matt.agnello at gmail.com >
>>
>> On May 4, 2008, at 6:44 AM, Chris Watkins wrote:
>>> After some digging, I discovered that CC-by material can be used
>>> under GFDL - which is very good news.
>>>
>>> It seems strange that this info is buried rather than prominently on
>>> the CC site, but the source is James Grimmelmann, a law academic,
>>> and it seems like he should know. I added the source link to the CC
>>> wiki, at
>>> http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Interoperability_between_Creative_Commons
>>> _licenses_and_GFDL#CC-by
>>>
>>> It does seem that there should be some more official statement on
>>> the CC site, from CC and/or FSF - the source I have is a one word
>>> answer on a mailing list (even if it is from someone who should  
>>> know).
>>>
>>> --
>>> Chris Watkins (a.k.a. Chriswaterguy)
>>>
>>> Appropedia.org, the wiki of:
>>> - Anti-poverty strategies
>>> - Sustainability
>>> - Appropriate technology
>>> - Collaboration for practical solutions
>>>
>>> Blog: chriswaterguy.livejournal.com/
>>>
>>> Buying at Amazon, eBay etc? Start at http://appropedia.maatiam.com
>>> and a percentage of your purchase supports Appropedia - at no extra
>>> cost.
>>>
>>> Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive
>>> heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up
>>> and caused society to overheat. -- Clay Shirky
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> cc-community mailing list
>>> cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
>>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community
>>
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