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cc-licenses - Re: Ad-based revenue of website containing cc material

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: James Grimmelmann <james.grimmelmann AT yale.edu>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Ad-based revenue of website containing cc material
  • Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2004 13:46:55 -0700

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




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