Question concerning definition of non-commercial use...

Theo Schmidt tschmidt at mus.ch
Tue Sep 14 18:15:37 EDT 2004


Greg London wrote in April:
...
"My take on non-commercial-use is that the
work itself is Distributed at no cost to the
recipient.
...
"d) $2 is commercial
...
"d) "$2 for my time and material costs"
businesses have to charge enough to
cover their time and material costs too.
iTunes sells a song for a buck.
exactly how are you distinguishing your
$2 from Apple's 99 cents?

"d) "much like Linux is sold"
Linux allows Commecial Distribution,
so Linux does not have a problem with RedHat.
CC-NonCommercial explicitely forbids
RedHat-like operations.
...

brad taylor said:
> I found this older message and am looking for some clarification on
> these topics as well. Any help would be appreciated.
> ------------
>     I am interested in creative commons licenses, but I
> have a few questions concerning the definition of
> non-commercial use? Here are a few examples that are
> unclear to me (assume all music files are covered
> under a non-commercial CC license)
...
> d.) I burn a CD full of music files and ask for $2 for
> my time and material costs. (much like selling a copy
> of Linux)

Is this really the official definition of "commercial"? At $2 per CD there is 
going to be a net loss per CD (except for very large copy runs). Therefore 
although the recipient is paying something, the copier is not profiting 
commercially. After all, the recipient has to pay a provider in order to 
download things as well, therefore is a at-cost priced CD not simply a 
vehicle for free content?

I'm thinking of a project which is a small book on free content with two CDs 
inside: a Linux distribution and a CD with free music, video, and ebook 
samples. The book and CD will be sold at less than cost, i.e. a price just 
covering printing and copying costs, with no profit. Cannot the definition of 
"non-profit" be equivalent to "non-commercial" for the CC-nc licences? Where 
can I get a definate ruling on this question?

Theo Schmidt, Switzerland



More information about the cc-licenses mailing list