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cc-licenses - Please fix CC trademark notice in licenses.

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Nathanael Nerode <neroden AT twcny.rr.com>
  • To: cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Please fix CC trademark notice in licenses.
  • Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 17:16:44 -0500

Most of the licenses have this clause at the end:

>Except for the limited purpose of indicating to the public that the Work is
>licensed under the CCPL, neither party will use the trademark "Creative
>Commons" or any related trademark or logo of Creative Commons without the
>prior written consent of Creative Commons. Any permitted use will be in
>compliance with Creative Commons' then-current trademark usage guidelines,
>as may be published on its website or otherwise made available upon request
>from time to time.

If read as part of this license, this restricts uses of the Creative Commons
trademark which are otherwise legitimate under trademark law;
if this is part of the license, then the licensor could declare that a user
was in breach of the license for doing something unrelated with the Creative
Commons trademark.

I'm sure this is unintentional. This isn't intended to be part of the
license
at all, but merely attached to it. It says in the HTML source:
<!-- BREAKOUT FOR CC NOTICE. NOT A PART OF THE LICENSE -->
But it doesn't say that, or anything equivalent, anywhere VISIBLE. It really
ought to.

Furthermore, if it's not a part of the license, it's still inaccurate:
>Except for the limited purpose of indicating to the public that the Work is
>licensed under the CCPL, neither party will use the trademark "Creative
>Commons" or any related trademark or logo of Creative Commons without the
>prior written consent of Creative Commons.

This purports to prohibit uses which do not require permission under
trademark
law; and doesn't really grant any permissions. It should instead say:

Creative Commons grants both parties the right to use the trademark "Creative
Commons" or the appropriate trademarks or logos of Creative Commons for the
limited purpose of indicating to the public that the Work is licensed under
the CCPL, and for that purpose only. Creative Commons does not grant any
other rights to use the trademark "Creative Commons" or any related trademark
or logo of Creative Commons without the prior written consent of Creative
Commons.

(If it's written this way, incidentally, it won't matter whether it's part of
the license or not.)

--Nathanael



  • Please fix CC trademark notice in licenses., Nathanael Nerode, 03/26/2004

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