Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

cc-eyebeam - Re: [cc-eyebeam] validating cc licenses? (question for neeru/glenn/wendy)

cc-eyebeam AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Creative Commons-Eyebeam Forum 2003 November 12-19

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Neeru Paharia <neeru AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: <cc-eyebeam AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-eyebeam] validating cc licenses? (question for neeru/glenn/wendy)
  • Date: Tue, 18 Nov 2003 17:26:59 -0800

I'm not lawyer but the first scenario you outline doesn't seem like fair-use
-- it seems like a derivative work, unless there's some kind of parody
involved. I'm sure the legal experts would have a more expansive opinion.

Neeru

On 11/18/03 10:36 AM, "jippolito AT guggenheim.org" <jippolito AT guggenheim.org>
wrote:

>
> In the face of legislation proposing to mandate copyright-sniffing DRM
> chips,
> I often wonder whether open licenses will be sufficient to protect
> innovative
> approaches to recording, playing, cataloging, and distributing art. It won't
> do artists any good to copyleft their movies if personal computers can only
> play videos produced by Hollywood studios.
>
> To fend off such draconian propositions, Neeru tells me that Creative
> Commons
> is investigating ways to demonstrate that file-sharing and its ilk have
> legitimate uses. I think this is a great idea, but I'm concerned that the
> mutability of digital media may create a liability for voluntary licenses
> that
> is hard to overcome.
>
> Suppose digital artist Geoff Kuhntz scans a copyrighted postcard of seven
> puppies on a cushion, then uses Photoshop to replace all but one with a
> flowery background. Suppose Kuhntz then posts his image with a CC license.
> He's free to do that--at least in America--because his "transformative use"
> of
> the original image qualifies for fair use protection against a copyright
> suit.
>
> Suppose then that another artist downloads it, agreeing to abide by the
> terms
> of the license. She decides it would look better if there were seven puppies
> instead of one, so she clones them--and wham, gets hit with a copyright
> infringement suit by the original artist.
>
> You can imagine the same scenario taking place in other media--for example,
> if
> an excerpted Philip Glass riff were re-sampled into a minimalist composition
> that rivaled the original, or if a work of online art that depended on
> random
> combinations of image and text from other pages accidentally re-created
> something dangerously close to one of its victims' Web pages. For digital
> culture, fair use is a porous category, which makes open licenses no
> guarantee
> you won't be sued.
>
> I would love to know whether Neeru, Glenn, or Wendy have any thoughts on
> this
> thorny issue--thanks!
>
> jon
> _______________________________________________
> cc-eyebeam mailing list
> cc-eyebeam AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-eyebeam
>
> This discussion runs 2003 November 12-19. Submissions are licensed
> under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
> license <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/>.
>





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page