Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Glenn Otis Brown" <glenn AT creativecommons.org>]

A could license the rules under a Creative Commons license that does not
include a share alike provision, a prohibition on derivative works, or a
noncommercial restriction; in other words -- the attribution only
license. Only the share alike provision acts like a "copyleft" license,
as you imagine here, and only the noncommercial restriction prevents
someone from making some for-profit use from a work. 


On Thu, 6 Nov 2003 17:22:28 +0000 (GMT), "Per I. Mathisen"
<per AT leftist.net> said:
> Lets say person A writes a pen-and-pencil roleplay game rulebook and puts
> this under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Then person B wants
> to write a computer game which uses and implements these rules. In doing
> so, B would have to use portions of the rulebook in his game code.
> 
> As far as I can tell, this would be a problem. Now B's computer program
> would be (or could easily be argued to be) a Derived Work off A's
> rulebook.
> 
> The Creative Commons licenses are wordy, and I suppose would conflict
> easily with common open source licenses in use today (GPL and LGPL for
> example). Also, if B wanted to write a closed source game, things could
> also get tricky. B's lawyers would probably be frightened of having the
> CC
> license applying (or possibly applying) to B's entire work, even if they
> could add additional restrictions.
> 
> Now this was not A's intention at all. A wants everyone to be able to use
> his work as long as they give due credit. Is there a way for A to license
> his work so that such issues do not arise, using a well-known license?
> 
> Thanks for any response.
> 
>   - Per
> 
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---------------------
Glenn Otis Brown
Executive Director
Creative Commons
glenn AT creativecommons.org
+1.650.723.7572 (telephone)
+1.415.336.1433 (mobile)