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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] 'Attribution' condition human-readable summary misleading

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Mike Linksvayer <ml AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] 'Attribution' condition human-readable summary misleading
  • Date: Wed, 08 Aug 2007 18:38:55 -0700

On Wed, 2007-08-08 at 14:56 +1000, Brianna Laugher wrote:
> I'm new to this list, but familiar with CC. I'm an editor at Wikimedia
> Commons ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/ ) which accepts the CC-BY and
> CC-BY-SA licenses. I'm impressed by CC's efforts to build bridges with
> groups such as my own, so I'm trying to reach back. :)

Excellent. :)

I think there are at least two separate issues below.

1) Could the deed language be more accurate?

The attribution description used to say "You must give the original
author credit." Early this year it was changed to "You must attribute
the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor."

The licensor can specify a name, title, and URL, though perhaps "manner"
could be misleading.

Please (Brianna or anyone) suggest language which is both more accurate
and "human readable". Seriously -- it may take awhile to make the
change, but we can change the deeds (but not the licenses), and would
love to if it makes them more accurate, understandable, etc.


2) Does the license allow for a licensor to provide attribution and
notice with fairly absurd specificity, such as font size, location in
photo, etc, as below?

I have no idea (IANAL, etc). The license does say "keep intact" and
later "may be implemented in any reasonable manner". Each may mean
something specific legally -- a lawyer will have to weigh in.

But even if the license allows for a licensor to specify attribution and
notice that cripple the ability to make useful derivatives, surely
Wikipedia can just reject those contributions? I seem to recall a
policy requiring that watermarks may be removed... hmm, maybe only
strongly encouraging the removal of watermarks --
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Watermark




> I have noticed that the human-readable summary of the 'Attribution'
> condition has lead a few people to a belief about their 'right' to
> 'specify the manner' in which they should be attributed, in a way
> which is not supported by the legal code of the license. The intent of
> the license text itself is very clear, but the wording of the
> human-readable summary is not backed up by any content in the legal
> code that I can see.
>
> Taking CC-BY-3.0 (unported) as an example, the human-readable summary says
>
> >> You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author
> or licensor
>
> Clause 4b says
>
> >>
> If You Distribute ... the Work, You must ... keep intact all copyright
> notices for the Work and provide, reasonable to the medium or means
> You are utilizing: (i) the name of the Original Author (or pseudonym,
> if applicable) ... (ii) the title of the Work if supplied; (iii) to
> the extent reasonably practicable, the URI, if any, that Licensor
> specifies to be associated with the Work ... The credit required by
> this Section 4 (b) may be implemented in any reasonable manner
> <<
>
> This is how one user interepreted his 'right' to 'specify the manner'
> of attribution:
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Fcb981/attribution&oldid=6493731
>
> He thought he could specify the exact wording of the text, the font
> type and size, and the location of the attribution as directly on the
> work. His line of thinking is not totally unreasonable if you only
> read the human summary. His directives are pretty extreme but I've
> come across other users who have thought (and tried to impose) similar
> things.
>
> IMO a 'reasonable manner' of attribution for a digital work presented
> in a digital form is caption/alt-text with a link and text stating the
> author and license. The idea that you could specify that the
> attribution's font size and exact location is quite an unreasonable
> one to me.
>
> Just wondering if anyone else had flagged this wording as a potential
> cause of confusion.
>
> In a slightly related note I have been wondering about the wording
> "keep intact all copyright notices for the Work": does this mean if
> someone puts a watermark on their image "(C) Someone 2007
> SomeLicense", we are obliged to keep it? I hope not...
>
> cheers,
> Brianna
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pfctdayelise
>
>
--
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/User:Mike_Linksvayer





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