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cc-licenses - Re: Dual-licensing under the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons *-ShareAlike-*

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: "Branko Collin" <collin AT xs4all.nl>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Dual-licensing under the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons *-ShareAlike-*
  • Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 14:53:23 +0100


On 2 Dec 2004, at 19:32, Evan Prodromou wrote:

> The problem: I believe that it's not possible to dual-license a
> derivative work of a work dually licensed under by-sa 1.0 and the
> GFDL. Here's my reasoning:
>
> by-sa 1.0 says:
>
> "You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
> publicly digitally perform a Derivative Work *only under the
> terms of this License*." [Emphasis mine]
>
> The ShareAlike license element in 2.0 is similar, but allows for
> iCommons versions of the license, and later versions of the license.
>
> The GFDL says:
>
> "You may copy and distribute a Modified Version of the
> Document under the conditions of sections 2 and 3 above,
> provided that you release the Modified Version under
> *precisely this License*." [Emphasis mine]
>
> My (admittedly inexpert) understanding is that a dual-licensed
> derivative work would not meet the requirements of by-sa 1.0, since it
> is not licensed "only" under the terms of that license. Similarly, a
> dual-licensed derivative work would not meet the requirements of the
> GFDL, since it is not licensed under "precisely" that license. (I
> think "precisely" is less of a strong term than "only", but to my ears
> it sounds like the same sort of requirement.)

I do not think you have a problem.

The way I read it, the author releases the work, saying that you may
modify it by either using the entire set of rules A or the entire of
set of rules B. I read the "only under the terms of this License" and
"precisely this License" to mean that you may not deviate from any
rules in license A if you decide to use that license, nor from any
rules in license B if you decide to use that license.

You could indeed argue that since you are supposed to follow all the
rules from both licenses, you end up with some sort of superlicense
that cancels itself out, but I find that a bit far-fetched. When a
work is dual-licensed, there are really two works: one that is
licensed under A, and another, separate one, that is bit for bit the
same, and that is licensed under B. When somebody releases a
derivative, s/he again releases two separate but identical works,
again each with their own license.

In the end, you may ask yourself: did your users dual-license their
contributions just to spite you? Or did they dual-license to enable
both projects to use a work? I don't think there are law-suits on the
horizon.

--
branko collin
collin AT xs4all.nl




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