Is cc-by a viral license?

Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller sloyment at gmx.net
Sat Nov 1 07:23:49 EST 2003


Hi Tomo,					(IANAL TINLA)

On Freitag 31 Oktober 2003 22:03, Watanabe Tomoaki wrote:
> I have a simple question regarding the difference between
> cc-by and cc-by-sa. It seems that when I create a derivative
> work (say, an encyclopedia article) based on someone else's
> cc-by contents (say, a instructional material for school
> teachers), I can release that derivative work (article) under
> any license, as long as I include attribution to the authors
> of the work I used (the instructional material).
>
> I may release it with fully copyrighted, or I may use other CC
> license, or some other copyleft licence, etc.

Right. However, if you choose another free license, make sure 
that it is as least as restrictive about attribution as the 
cc-by license. The cc-by-sa will propably be OK, but not the 
cc-sa, the GPL or GFDL.

This is much the same as with the BSD license. It is non-viral, 
and its only requirement is to retain a warranty disclaimer. The 
GPL has such a requirement too, so they are compatible, i.e. you 
can combine BSD-licensed code with GPLed code. However, the 
*old* BSD license featured an attribution clause which the GPL 
didn't. So these licenses were not compatible.

cu,
Thomas }:o{#
-- - http://217.160.174.154/~sloyment/ - --
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