Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Todd A. Jacobs" <nospam AT codegnome.org>]

On Mon, Mar 07, 2005 at 04:00:14PM -0500, drew Roberts wrote:

> So, as per your understanding, if I license BY-NC, you can make a
> derivative and and charge money for your derivative? What about making
> it all rights reserved? BY alone? If so, perhaps this is why you need
> the SA even with an NC, although this still leaves the 1meaning
> cloudiness Greg is concerned about.

Yes, that is essentially my interpretation. Perhaps someone with some
case law experience could explain why this interpretation would (or
would not) stand up in court, but I think that:

    1. It is sufficiently confusing that the issue could arise, and

    2. Even if it wouldn't stand a court test, it would be hard to prove
    anything other than accidental infringement with a non-SA license.

Basically, if Larry licenses a work BY-NC, and Moe then re-licenses
under BY, then Curly most likely cannot be held responsible for
deliberate infringement with his commercial derivative.

In other words, without SA, I'm unconvinced that the licensing
relationship is transitive: Moe licenses from Larry, but Curly doesn't,
so isn't bound by the terms of the *original* license.

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