[cc-community] Simplifying Licenses

mp m.pedersen at lancaster.ac.uk
Thu Mar 5 10:52:23 EST 2009



Gisle Hannemyr wrote:
> On 05.03.2009 13:35, mp wrote:
>  > I have not followed this discussion closely this time around, but I did
>> years ago and have recently, in connection with an embryonic project,
>> been in touch with Diane Peters, CC' General Counsel, about similar
>> issues and she noted that it has been recognised that the NC clause
>> requires what we can call an analytical "breakdown" based on empirical
>> evidence (and that is apparently part of the current NC review process):
>>
>> The non-commercial clause is misleading/ambiguous/virtually useless
> 
> No, it has many uses (read on).

Good points, but what about if you use NC as a collective and not as an
individual - then it might be difficult to find all the rights holders,
let alone reach agreement? That is how I have seen NC been rejected in
the past.

However, you are probably right (and I have added specific
sub-sub-clauses myself in the past to specify just that)

Nevertheless, so I am told, many people have had this experience and it
is currently part of the revision process of NC.

Perhaps you should pay attention to that process and give input.

m

> But a fairly simple use is to uphold basic author's rights by
> preventing companies from using work released with a NC
> condition for advertising (or at least it allows the author to
> collect for damages if they violate this condition).
> 
> This is perfectly enforcable.
> A friend of mine got US $ 2150 when a retail chain used one of his
> Flickr photos (published under CC BY-NC) for advertising.
> Full story: http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~gisle/blog/?p=92
> 
>> because it is presumably intended for use by independent creators who
>> want to prevent big players from using their creation to make money, but
>> the very same people who want to prevent, say, Rupert Murdoch from
>> cashing in on their work, might very well want the local social centre,
>> NGO or community group to be able to generate a little but of income by
>> selling copies of that work.
> 
> I don't understand this argument (which I often hear as an argument
> against NC).
> 
> Nothing stops the people you speak of from granting the local social
> centre, NGO or community group the rights they need to generate
> income by selling copies of that work.
> 
> Every commons deed contain the following phrase:
>   "Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission
>    from the copyright holder."
> and this exemption goes for the NC condition as well.
> 
> The NC condition is not there to prevent commercial use of a work.
> It is there to let the author /control/ commercial use of the work.
> This control is (IMHO) what makes the NC condition most useful.
> 
>> What is needed is a clause that prevents corporations with only profit
>> motivations, but allow community building initiatives.
> 
> No.  You can only regulate so much through licensing, and trying to make
> this sort of distinctions through license clauses will be utterly
> confusing to both authors and users.
> 
> "Motivation" is a very elusive thing, because some people
> lie about what motivates them.
> 
> For instance there are some NGOs in my neighbourhood that
> claim to work for the public good, but basically operate to
> create profit for their officers - (usually by buying services
> from the officers private companies at inflated prices).  I
> don't want the officers of these NGOs to profit from my work,
> any more than I want Rupert Murdoch to profit from my work.
> 
> In short: Having a clause that makes some sort of distinction
> based upon the "motivations" would mean that we would need to
> hire a psychologist to interview the users to decide the
> real motivations of the user.  This is not practical.
> 
> Even if we leave the confusing issue of "motivation" out of
> the equation - there are examples of users with a non-profit
> motivation that I do not want to support.
> 
> For instance a neo-nazi/white supremacist activist group may
> be made up of honest, hard-working, unpaid, dedicated people.
> I still do not want such an activist group to use my work for
> fundraising.
> 
> So - I'm very much in favour of an expansive interpretetation of the
> NC-clause, along the following lines: If there is any doubt, consider
> it commercial use and let the author decide whether he/she will still
> grant permission.
> 
>> Such community building actions as performed by social centres, activist
>> groups etc. are clearly commercial and they are also clearly for profit
>> (that's the whole point: to generate cash), but they are very, very
>> different from AOL/Time Warner's ideas of commercial, profit oriented
>> activities.
>>
>> CC does not provide a solution for that.
> 
> I don't see why CC /should/ provide a solution for that.
> 
> I release most of my work with an NC claise (contributions to Wikipedia
> being the sole exception).
> 
> This leaves me with enough control to grant (for instance) Ammnesty
> International the rights to use my photos and texts for fundraising,
> and to refuse a neo-nazi/white supremacist activist group the same
> rights.
> 
> The solution already in place for the NC clause - that they have to ask
> so the author can decide what to do on a case-by-case basis - is in my
> opinion the only acceptable solution.
> 
> If the NC clause was removed or weakened so that I as an author
> no longer have this option, I would simply stop releasing material
> under a Creative Commons license.


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