[cc-licenses] Clarification needed - Copyleft AND Share-Alike with Images
James Grimmelmann
james at grimmelmann.net
Mon Feb 26 09:10:48 EST 2007
rob at robmyers.org wrote:
> Image libraries seem to have no trouble defining the circumstances in
> which use
> of their copyrighted material requires payment, or the scope and nature of use
> that they will consider at all. They do not use an existing narrow right, they
> use an existing blanket right and give permission to exercise this right in
> narrow circumstances with carefully worded limits and requirements.
>
> So real-world experience shows that the case of illustrations doesn't
> need a new
> narrow right, it doesn't need the meaning of any legal terms to be
> changed, and
> it doesn't need the scope of the license to be limited discretely by the
> terminology used by the law.
>
> For a copyleft license the case of illustration needs the scope of the license
> to expand to cover reproduction in a few carefully defined cases where
> reproduction rather than derivation creates a context where "share and share
> alike" is broken.
Something I have been wondering about is whether there would be a way to
use license compatibility to:
(1) keep BY-SA itself unchanged,
(2) create a more stringent BY-StrictSA for photographers who object to
this use,
(3) allow works formed from the combination of BY-SA and BY-StrictSA
works to be redistributed under some SA-type license, and
(4) not allow an end run around the goals of either license.
The point is that those who like BY-SA with its current GPL-ish level of
restriction and those who would prefer a stricter BY-StrictSA that would
have the share-alike provision kick in sooner are both looking for a
good share-alike license. Unlike with NC, neither of them wants to put
additional restrictions on how the work is used; they just disagree
about how broadly the share-alike rule should apply. A good
compatibility scheme might mitigate some of the dangers of creating new
kinds of SA licenses.
I remain skeptical of what I'm calling the StrictSA project, but the
discussion over it is opening up some very interesting and important
possibilities.
James
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