[cc-community] Germany - NC/CC violation - request for help

Robert Atwood (lists) lists at atwood.org.uk
Mon May 26 21:26:29 EDT 2008


Yuval Levy wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I am a photographer currently based in Canada and I publish some of my 
> art work under (CC)-BY-NC-SA and some under (CC)-BY-NC-ND.
> 
> It has come to my attention that at least one such work has been used by 
> a large exhibit 

...

I am not a lawyer either .. however it seems worth putting my 2p worth , 
as far as I know CC of either type you mentioned is not in any way a 
replacement of copyright. It is a license granted by the copyright 
holder. So copyright laws apply, It just seems like people are imagining 
that (cc) is some other thing but although plenty of people on this list 
probably think copyright laws need to be changed and work toward that 
goal, the licenses themselves are intended to work within the existing 
laws in attempt to make it easy to do what we want despite those laws . 
I'm sure you know that really but it seems usage of (cc) then (c) in the 
original post , where of course the (cc) material is in fact (c) . If 
they don't nicely agree to do what you want when asked, you need to use 
(c) law which involves lawyers, courts, etc.

I guess it might be dead easy to get the (a.r.r) material  ordered off, 
I am not too sure if this venue can offer much help with that ;-0 but a 
lawyer sure can for the correct fee :-)

  the other stuff mabye more complicated because you have granted them 
(everyone) a license so you need to argue whether they obey the terms of 
the license, no doubt it's different enough from any other previous 
dispute to require some examination of the exact situation ..

. but they may have a case  that NC is ok despite money changing hands, 
if the English licnese I have looked at is any guide. because it says:

(from UK version , sorry I don't read German though )
"""""""""""
Non-Commercial" means "not primarily intended for or directed towards 
commercial advantage or private monetary compensation".
""""""""""""

I might argue, that  mounting a public exhibit takes money to pay for 
things, like if I take one of your NC works and buy a frame and place 
your work in the frame, and hang it on the street,  do I violate the 
license because  the frame maker makes money? What if the maker's name 
is on the frame? What if the maker  gave me the frame? What if I am also 
the maker?

See where I'm going, if they claim that the sponsorship just covers 
costs and does not  give them profit, even if some of those costs are 
their own time ( contracting their time as framers, or curators , or 
janitors,  to the exhibit ) it could be a valid argument that the use of 
the art is not "primarily intended" for that. Then you might argue that 
the sponsoring bodies gain commercial advantage by having their name on 
it ... but that seems a bit tenuous to me, can they not sponsor 
non-profit agencies?

In fact it leads me to wonder just what sort of use you imagine people 
using your cc-by-nc-* works for? To be honest, that sounds a bit like 
the kind of thing i would EXPECT at least  the cc-by-nc-sa works to be 
used for.

But those that are not -sa- should not be modified, that is pretty clear.

I am not a lawyer.
This is not legal advice.
It's my opinion.










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