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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: wiki_tomos <wiki_tomos AT inter7.jp>
  • To: cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [cc-licenses] (no subject) ("which license is this work under?")
  • Date: 4 Jan 2006 13:22:30 +0900

Hi. Thank you again for replying to my long and
technical post.

Terry Hancock wrote:

>Yes, it does. Ian is part of the public to which the work
>may be released under the terms of the CC-BY-SA 2.0, 2.5, or
>3.0. If the work is released under the CC-BY-SA 2.0, he is
>entitled to release it under CC-BY-SA 3.0, to himself, as
>well as other people. As a result, he then has the freedoms
>granted by CC-BY-SA 3.0, including (assuming such a grant is
>included), the ability to release under GFDL.
>
>Since this is possible, he can effectively release straight
>to GFDL, with the implication that it is also released under
>CC-BY-SA 3.0 (it's like a dual license).

Well, I have been thinking almost exactly the same as you. But
in the last post, I wanted to demonstrate that there seemed to be
a wholly different interpretation, with opposite consequence, and that
interpretation seemed to be more faithful to the letter of the licenses.

Would you mind if I try to convince you?

In this example, Greg's poem is under CC-BY-SA 2.0, and
Helen's lyric based on the poem is under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

And the central question is when CC-BY-SA 2.0 says
Ian "may distribute, ... a Derivative Work only under
... a later version of this License with the same License
Elements as this License..." does that mean that Ian
can now switch the license of Greg's poem from 2.0 to 3.0?
Or, as I suggested, is it simply requiring Ian to release
his contribution to the book under one of the licenses, while
keeping the Greg's part still under 2.0?

I believe you support the former interpretation. I see one problem
with that interpretation nowadays.

(1) CC-BY licenses do not have that "restriction" for derivative
works at all. CC-BY has restrictions related to copyright notice,
attribution, URI, etc., but not regarding the license choices for
a derivative work.

(2) A simple reading of this fact would be, "derivative
of a CC-BY'd work could be licensed in any way, full copyright or
very liberal license." In case of CC-BY-SA'd work, its derivative
has to be licensed under one of SA licenses (or GFDL).

(3) If this were the case, one consequence is
that when Bob *minimally* change Alice's CC-BY'd short story
to make it a derivative short story, Bob can release the whole
piece under, say, a license which does not require any attribution.
By that move by Bob, most of Alice's piece is now usable without
attribution to her. Is this what CC-BY allows? I doubt. And this
is the problem with that interpretation.

The fact that term "restriction" is used for the SA licese's
provision regarding derivative work's license choices means,
instead, this: CC-BY does not impose restriction regarding
how Bob releases "Bob's creative contribution in the derivative work
Bob created using Alice's work" (i.e. Bob's part). It is up to Bob
how Bob licenses Bob's part. But whatever license Bob chooses,
Alice's work remains under the same license, CC-BY. In contrast, SA
liceses restricts Bob's release of Bob's part. It has to be under a
SA license (and/or GFDL). But again, Alice's part is still under the
same, initial SA license. So if Alice's work was under SA 2.0, and
Bob chooses SA 3.0, Alice's part embedded in Bob's derivative is
usable only under SA 2.0, not 3.0.

That's how I came to interpret what SA licenses says.


>Whether this is desireable or not is an issue for CC (and
>this list) to discuss -- has Greg been unfairly taken
>advantage of by this sequence of events?

I agree with you on this. I personally prefer more compatibility,
the possibility of CC-BY-SA 2.0/2.5'd works to be ported to
GFDL via derivative works. (Not that I do not have concerns
about the proposed compatibility plan, but I will not repeat them
here).

One way to make clear that this kind of uncertainty exists
regarding future license options for Licensees is to have a
phrase like this ..
"You may distribute, perform, ... a Derivative Work ... GFDL, and/or
other compatible licenses. Compatible licenses will be specified
in the later version of this License having the same License Element
as this License."

This makes clear that Author, by using CC-BY-SA licenses, is facing
an uncertainty what type of licenses options will be available for
his work's derivatives in the future.

Best Regards,


Tomos




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