[cc-licenses] The FSF On FDL Derivatives
rob at robmyers.org
rob at robmyers.org
Wed May 9 07:34:15 EDT 2007
(I'm posting this here because of the recent debate about photography.)
The FSF have blogged about their interpretation of the scope of the FDL:
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/2007-05-08-fdl-scope
They support the position that Ben Mako Hill described, where use of
an image to illustrate a text creates a derivative. It's well worth a
read.
I was particularly interested by this statement:
"In cases like these where the materials complement each other, we
believe that the end result is a derivative work."
This contains two useful distinctions. The materials have been chosen
to complement each other to form a unit of presumably increased value
or greater use rather than just being aggregated. And *the end result*
is the derivative work, not the text or the photo, so legal causality
isn't broken.
What I am curious about is what exactly this "end result" is
(collective work, new multimedia work, or ...?) and how far-reaching
this effect is (particularly with regard to e.g. contextual
advertising).
- Rob.
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