[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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