[cc-licenses] Public Performance Clause & More ...

azrael azrael at open-forensics.com
Fri Jul 20 08:39:50 EDT 2007


Thanks James,


> >
> > (1) Does No commercial prevent someone using our methodology to create a
>
> > piece of work for profit ? E.g. Can a paid forensic examiner work a
> client
> > case according to our methodology and report it according to guidelines
> > that
> > we set if we use the "No commercial" section ...
>
> Yes.  Copyright law itself doesn't reach far enough to stop them.
> You're running up against the functionality problem; processes as such
> aren't copyrightable, only descriptions of them.  Even a copyright in
> the format isn't sufficient -- there's a 19th century case (Baker v.
> Selden) that copyright in an accounting system won't stop someone else
> from publishing a book of forms that "interoperate" with the system.
>
> You'd need something more like patent protection, or perhaps trade
> secret.  Trade secret is pretty much incompatible with using a CC
> license, and with your goal of distributing the knowledge.
>
> What your license will do is make sure that no one changes the
> methodology as they distribute it far and wide, and also make sure that
> no one distributing it will profit *from the distribution*.


Good, sorry, I didn't quite make it clear which side of the fence we were on
on this one :-) The above result is what we were looking to obtain -
protection of our work, but free use of the "benefits" from following it.

> (2) If the above happens ( either for profit or not ... ) and the acquired
>
> > results are presented in court, would this qualify as a "public
> > performance"
> > of the work, and would it then be licensed under the same terms ? (
> > Obviously this is an impossible legal position ... )
>
> It would (I think) be a public performance, but because of the answer to
> (1), there wouldn't be a licensing issue.  Note also that with a
> BY-NC-ND license, there's no share-alike clause, so there'd be no
> question about relicensing the in-court results under the same terms.
> The reuse is either forbidden in the first place, or permissible and
> whatever contributions the person using it made would be free and clear.


Can I ask for some further clarification on this please ? Does producing
work from a methodology licensed through CC have no requisite to state that
the resulting work was created using such a methodology ( other than good
scientific citation ) ?

> (3) There are no issues with licensing a group work provided all
> > contributors agree to the terms, am I correct in thinking that ? Or do
> we
> > have to create some form of legal entity to license under ?
>
> You are correct.  It's definitely a best practice to get that agreement
> in writing and to document the specific contributions made by everyone.


Thank you, good advice I will heed well :-)

Cheers,

Azrael

--
Azrael
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