Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Monday 11 April 2005 12:25 am, J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote:
> Daniel Carrera wrote:
> > Say I give the book to a student for free, and charge for the teaching
> > services. Is that allowed?
>
> It would be hard to convince people that you weren't charging for the book.
>
> You would be better off telling the student where to get the book online
> (for free download) and having them print a copy themselves (a commercial
> transaction between them and the copy shop) then report to your class book
> in hand.

Yes, but could the copyshop legally make a copy. Could a stationers legally 
sell the paper to print the book? C ould an ink manufacturer legally sell the 
ink to print it? These may seem like stupid questions, but I assure you I am 
serious. I was just informed (and very possibly correctly) that a store could 
not sell blank CDs to copy the work onto under certain conditions.

> If I understand the NC language correctly, one of the misunderstandings
> pervading this thread is the confusion between what the NC licenses say and
> reframing the debate to focus on making a profit (a proper subset of
> commercial activity).  The subject is not whether one makes a profit (thus,
> it is not relevant to ask how much the advertised object sells for and how
> much it cost to produce).  The subject ultimately focuses on a copyright
> holder's desire to get a percentage of any money that trades hands when
> copies of the work are shared.

And you last sentence is the problem in a nutshell. People are often talking 
of situations where money is not trading hands when the copies of the work 
are shared but could easily be considered as "primarily intended for or 
directed toward commercial advantage."

I also note that in the definitions section of the license:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/legalcode

commercial is not defined.

I have no issues with people being able to license their work NC as it 
stands. 
I do think though, that some would want a sligktly less restrictive NC (like 
me) but I am not sure what form it could take.

all the best,

drew