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cc-licenses - Re: Question about possible use of NC works

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: "J.B. Nicholson-Owens" <jbn AT forestfield.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Question about possible use of NC works
  • Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2005 18:09:00 -0500

drew Roberts wrote:
There is a furniture business in the family. They have a department that sells home entertainment, pro audio, and musical instruments. My idea, and I don't know if they will bite, it so provide a PC with a burner in the store loaded with music that the public could access and burn CDs for themselves. They could bring their own CDs or the store could sell them some. (Currently the store does not sell blank media.

I think that CC NC licensors will look at this as a way for the store to get people in and get them to buy some furniture or electronic goods; in other words, the NC work is being used for commercial gain.

My thought is there would be no charge for the use of the machine and any member of the public could come in and avail themselves of this. They would not have to be paying customers and there would be no ties or obligations.

Perhaps the store could host the computer in a local public library or some other clearly public place?

As for blank media, I recommend continuing to not sell it at all. Either don't provide blank media or offer it free of charge. Again, do what you can to draw a clear separation between what you're doing and any commercial involvement between you and the users. The focus here is not on making a profit, one of the major misunderstandings about the NC licenses judging from the discussions on this list, it's on "commercial advantage or private monetary compensation" which reads sufficiently broadly to include even being merely recompensed for the money spent on blank media.

If this would not cross the line, are there any gotchas that we would need to be careful of? That is, things vwery similar that would cross the line?

Sponsorship notification: "This computer brought to you by Roberts Furniture World--really low prices and stuff you'll like!". Such language reads like an ad and suggests that the copying station is really there to draw users into the store.




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