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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Amberleigh Young <amberleigh AT muux.com>
  • To: cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Compilation copyright
  • Date: Wed, 26 Nov 2003 16:31:20 +0900

I run a web site to which users can contribute original
written works. I would like to allow (or actually, require)
users to contribute under a license similar to the CC
Attribution License (by:), because I would like for my
users to retain the ability to use their content in any
way, while retaining for myself the ability to exploit the
content in other media, with attribution to the original
creators.

The attribution license seems to accomplish this, but my
worry is that it also seems to allow anyone to batch
download my entire site, change the branding, and set
it up elsewhere, publish it in book form, or whatever.

What I am looking for is a license that adds the equivalent
of the U.S. copyright law's "compilation copyright," such
that the original creators can use their work in any way,
I can use the work as collected on my site in any way,
and any third party can use the work with attribution in
any way except one: the duplication of all the work as
collected on my site.

In other words, they can use portions of it (selected
as they choose), but they can't duplicated it lock, stock,
and barrel. In the United States, this kind of compilation
copyright can be applied to public domain work, such
as a book of the works of Edgar Allan Poe or a directory
of publicly available data.

Is this philosophically counter to what CC is trying to
promote? In other words, should I just draft my own
license rather than try to lobby for a new CC variation?

For reference, the relevant U.S. law follows:

17 USC 101

A "collective work" is a work, such as a periodical issue,
anthology, or encyclopedia, in which a number of
contributions, constituting separate and independent works
in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. A
"compilation" is a work formed by the collection and
assembling of preexisting materials or of data that are
selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the
resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of
authorship. The term "compilation" includes collective works.





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