Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james.grimmelmann AT yale.edu>]

At 06:00 PM 8/9/2004, Haig Shahinian wrote:

> I am considering donating all excess revenue (net profit) back to the
> creators/holders of the cc-licensed material.  Again, my primary
> interest is not making money from this, but at the same time not losing
> money either.  As owner and employee of the corporation I would however
> consider getting payed a small salary for my time which would be taken
> from the revenues and considered part of the operating costs.  Since my
> income from this corp. would be a direct result of revenues earned
> through hosting and delivery of the cc-licensed content, could this be
> construed as infringement?  My guess is most probably.

There are court cases which have held that where money is funneled to the 
people involved in an enterprise, that may count as "for profit" (the 
ancestor of the modern "commercial advantage" test in copyright law), even 
though the organization itself does not make money from a use.

So yes, I would agree with your guess, unless you could positively 
demonstrate that your salary was entirely derived from revenues not at all 
attributable to the CC-NC content.  On the scenario you give, I see 
infringement.

I am not a judge; I am not a lawyer; I am not a representative of CC.

James