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cc-licenses - Re: Question on license options

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Glenn Otis Brown <glenn AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: "Reeves-McMillan, Mike" <Mike.ReevesMcMillan AT oxygenforbusiness.com>
  • Cc: licenses AT creativecommons.org
  • Subject: Re: Question on license options
  • Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 20:11:31 -0700

It's not totally clear to me what the situation is if I want to license a
work for free reproduction/distribution provided that the
person/organisation reproducing the work does not profit from the
reproduction/distribution, but also want to allow commercial use provided
that I receive royalties from the commercial use. Is there a license
combination that allows for this?



Good question, Mike. I'm cc-ing our public archived email list, licenses AT creativecommons.org, so that there is a record of this question.

Our noncommercial option prevents licensees from making a profit off of selling your work -- without first asking and striking a separate deal with you. Say you put a photograph out under a noncommercial license. Then say my for-profit magazine wanted to use it as a cover shot. We would be required to strike a separate one-off deal with you to get that permission. The structure is basically what you describe:

In other words, if you aren't making any money out of it, distribute it all
you like, but if you are, I want a share.

Note that exceptions to the noncommercial provision must be negotiated between you and the would-be moneymaking licensee, ad hoc. It would be mighty complicated to write a noncommercial provision that somehow made such "payback when profit" an automatic feature of the CC license.


Hope this helps. Please remember to reply-to-all so this winds up back on the licenses@ list.

Thanks,

Glenn



------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------------------
Glenn Otis Brown glenn AT creativecommons.org
Executive Director t +1.650.723.7572
(cc) creativecommons f +1.650.723.8440






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