[cc-community] by-sa and exlusive edition
Terry Hancock
hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Wed Oct 1 10:13:12 EDT 2008
Dr. Peter Troxler (Waag Society) wrote:
> Terry, in an earlier post (On 29 aug 2008, at 22:38, Re: [cc-
> community] Question about Share Alike) you reported a specific case of
> incompatibility of the by-sa when you wanted to combine a by-sa work
> with screencaps (which you used following citation/fair use rules)
> which was not possible because of the sa provisions; so you concluded
> that 'there were situations where the "SA" could be burdensome'.
Oh that. :-)
Please take that with just a little bit of salt -- I was pointing out
that it's not a perfect system, not recommending we throw it out. I
still use By-SA myself for most images I create.
> Pondering which license to use, by or by-sa, what aspects would you
> take into consideration relative to this problem (i.e. when I would be
> the one whose work would later be used in situations where the by-sa
> would actually prevent its use):
However, if you are doing something that you don't have too much
invested in (e.g. snapping photos, not as a professional photographer,
but in the course of your other activities), and you want to make the
work useful to the largest number of people -- then just use "By".
Also, as has been pointed out on this list, the "SA" provisions seems
not to do a whole lot of good for images. Simple enhancements and
croppings don't "create a new work" so the SA is unnecessary. And
associating images with textual works (on a web page or in a book) is
considered to form a "collection" not a "derivative", so the SA is not
binding on them.
So, it _might_ actually make sense to always use "By" on images, because
the "SA" does little or no good, and _may_ (as I pointed out)
occasionally do some bad. As far as I know, this is fairly specific to
images and graphic arts -- for other kinds of works, SA seems to be
quite useful.
But as I say, I haven't personally made that choice. I still use By-SA
for most purposes.
The major exception for me is that I also have an ethical belief that
when using public funds to develop any content, you should always use a
free, _non-copyleft_ license (of which "By" is one example). My
rationale here is that, in such situations, you've already been paid,
therefore any form of "rent-seeking" behavior (even the copyleft) is
unethical.
Obviously, the US federal government is not so strict: there are many
situations in which they fund activities which then become proprietary
to the developers. However, there _are_ guidelines on this -- activities
which are solely government-funded and done by government employees _do_
fall into the public domain. The loopholes have to do with work done by
government contractors, and various assessments about whether the work
is _solely_ government-funded (if the company has made a private
investment, it's entitled to protect that investment).
But I personally view such loopholes as "bad form". I can't say I have
much experience with this, but when I did deliver software under a
government contract, I used an "MIT" license for it, which is non-copyleft.
> -- the audience my work is intended for and how I assume they are
> going to use it (I know this involves a lot of second guessing, but
> say I'm interested in users from academia or education, your example
> could very well be a common situation)
> -- the likelihood that I would want to build on what others do with my
> work (again, a lot of guesswork)
> -- whether I expect users to use other, similar licenses, which are
> not (yet) officially " Creative Commons Compatible Licenses"
I agree that those are good reasons to use "By", at least for images.
I'm less sure about text.
In an academic context, though, you're usually not very concerned about
the possibility of proprietary derivatives, are you? I mean we're
normally talking about work done as part of teaching or research, for
which you're already being paid. That strikes me as the sort of
situation where "Attribution-only" is the best choice.
However, if you are trying to create a new textbook on your own, and you
want it to remain a free resource, attract new contributions to it, and
so on, then you might want By-SA to protect the free work from being
co-opted. In that situation, it's probably worth the few inconveniences
that it may create (and again, you _can_ still ask for re-licensing when
conflicts do arise).
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
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