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cc-licenses - Re: [gnu.org #238740] Derivatives of dual-licensed Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike and GFDL works

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [gnu.org #238740] Derivatives of dual-licensed Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike and GFDL works
  • Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 16:34:01 -0400

On Thursday 05 May 2005 01:27 pm, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> On Thu, May 05, 2005 at 06:08:02PM +0200, Wouter Vanden hove wrote:
> > >Unlike other copyleft licenses, the ShareAlike says that the
> > >derivative work can be distributed _only_ under the terms of that
> > >license (or a later version, or an equivalent iCommons license).
> >
> > Unless, permission is granted to them via another license by the
> > original author.
>
> Yes. My point is that neither the GFDL (I think) nor the CC-by-sa
> allows dual-licensed derivative works.
>
> > That's a false assumption. They aren't two works: it's one work,
> >
> > >with two optional licenses.
> >
> > one version under with two licenses =
> > two versions under each one licenses.
>
> I'm afraid I just can't see how granting permission to use a work
> under two different licenses makes it into two different works. If I
> give you permission to enter my house through either the back door or
> the front door, that doesn't mean I have two houses.

One reason is that if it didn't, even the original author could not release
under CC BY-SA and another license.

I say this because the CC BY-SA license claims to be the whole agreement.
Which means it is claiming that the terms of the other license don't matter
legally. See what I mean?

You have to consider it that the author released the work once under one
license and again under a different license. The downstreams then get to
choose which license they want to make their derivative under or to make the
same derivative under each license.

And if that won't work, the original author just neads to actually release it
twice with the different licenses. Which I will do now (in abbreviated form)
by way of example with a short poem I wrote back in high school.

-----
The following poem is release under the CC BY-SA license:

Someone touched their canle to mine,
And brought me out of my darkness.
-----

-----
The following poem is release under the GFDL license:

Someone touched their canle to mine,
And brought me out of my darkness.
-----

See what I mean?


>
> > it's not necesaary to talk about derivatives,
> > just think about distributing the original dual-licensed work by
> > third-parties.
> > According to your own reasoning they always have to remove one license.
>
> Is that supposed to be some kind of /reductio ad absurdum/? Maybe you
> should take a closer look at the verbatim copying sections of both
> licenses. Do either seem amenable to third parties distributing under
> multiple licenses?
>
> I realize that all this dual-licensing stuff seems counterintuitive,
> but maybe we should instead be wondering why we would expect two
> strong copyleft licenses to work well together in the first place.
>
> Just because you have two good horses, doesn't mean you can ride them
> both at the same time, with a foot on each one's back. One may be
> taller than the other, or one may run faster than the other. Two
> things that work well on their own may not work well together.
>
> I don't think this is a hopeless case, by the way. I think you can do
> a careful license grant that routes around the extreme exclusivity of
> the two licenses. Maybe something like this:
>
> "You may use this work per the terms of the Creative Commons
> Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license or, at your option, under
> the terms of GNU Free Documentation License 1.2. As a special
> exception, you may also offer recipients of the work or
> derivative works their choice of either of these two
> licenses."
>
> I don't think it's gruesome; I just think it takes some thought. I
> don't see why that's some kind of radical nuthouse idea.
>
> ~Evan
>
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