[cc-licenses] Clarification needed - Copyleft AND Share-Alike with Images

wolfgang wander wwc at lns.mit.edu
Thu Feb 15 19:03:46 EST 2007


Now the question has come up here before twice this month and the
lack of definitive answers is actually quite frightening.  The two
very explicit questions are

  Is is ok to combine CC-by-SA licensed images with non-free editorial
  text? (Erik Moeller)

And

  Are the share-alike Creative Commons licenses intended to increase
  the pool of similarly licensed works by utilizing the pool of
  share-alike work as an incentive for the creators of new content to
  release their work under a free license? (Gregory Maxwell)

Very close to home for me:  I as a photographer who made his work
available under CC-by-SA (so that my images can be use on wikipedia) am
a little bit astonished that it should be possible to use my images in
non-free articles and web publications.

Photographs per se are hardly ever used to derive from to generate other
images but are a rather expensive commodity for editorial use.  My
images on wikimedia should not be in the business to compete with stock
photography agencies and I believe no photographer would chose cc-by-sa
over a non-sa license if they would also agree to a then "free as in
beer" usage of their work.

After all the Share Alike clause in your short cc-by-sa description
claims 'Share Alike. If you ..., BUILD UPON THIS WORK' which I clearly
understand as an inclusion of my images in editorial content.

A clarification is most urgently needed.

      Thanks,
             Wolfgang



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