Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Tuesday 12 April 2005 01:40 pm, Robin Millette wrote:
> wiki_tomos wrote:
> > Once and again, let me warn you that I am not a lawyer, so I could well
> > be wrong. But I wanted to share my version of answers to drew's question.
>
> I'm no lawyer either, just very puzzled ;)
>
> > If you are given a bound book licensed under CC-nc, and wants to give it
> > to a friend, auction it online, or sell it to a used bookstore, that's no
> > problem, in my understanding.
> >
> > The same can be said if you were a commercial used-bookstore owner
> > selling that book.
> >
> > The important point is that all of these sales are made without making
> > any copy of the book, nor any public performance, display, etc. of the
> > work. The act is, in other words, not relevant to copyright.
>
> Talk about laundering: I print and bind a book, or 50. I give them to
> you. You sell each copy. Then reverse the roles. Oups. Of course, this
> goes strictly against the spirit.

Forget for the time being people seeing a loophole and using it to circumvent 
the license. I am talking honestly here. I can legally buy an "all rights 
reserved" book from a bookstore and give it as a gift. I can legally print 
and bind a CC NC book and give it as a gift. Each can be passed a gifts 
through 10 people before the final person decides to sell them to a used book 
store. Could it really be possible that this last person would be guilty of 
copyright infringement for selling the NC work to the used book store? (Or 
worse, that I, who originally printed, bound and gave the book as a gift 
would be guilty of copyright infringement five years after I last touched the 
book?)
>
> > Now, if you printed out that CC-nc'd book from online, that is a bit
> > different. In that case, you are the licensee because you created a print
> > copy of a digital file. You cannot make a copy "primarily intended for or
> > directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation."
>
> That dampens the effect: I can't know you will be selling them, or else
> I'm infringing the licence. I see. 

> There's no commercial advantage to 
> selling for cost. 

Others argue differently. They speak of money changeing hands.

> Someone could be paid for his daily labour and there 
> would still be no commercial advantage (the printer, the proofreader, etc.)
>
> > (4b of the license text). In many (but not all) contexts, printing out
> > for your own reading or decoration of your bookshelf is clearly legal.
> > Gift-giving I would say is easier to defend, because file-exchange is
> > explicitly said to be non-commercial and gift-giving among friends is
> > very close to it.
>
> Instead of printing it out yourself, like a nice picture, you could go
> to a profesional and have it printed and bound. You would pay for that
> profesional service, yet it's a non commercial use, right ? Again,
> imagine you're sort of the McDonalds' of Free Culture, and you want to
> provide a quick service. Is it ok to stock a few copies of popular
> orders to save time, only because our current copiers aren't capable of
> printing and binding a book in 5 minutes or less ?
>
> > Leasing is also a bit different story, I suppose, at least in some
> > countries. I cannot say much about this because I know so little, but I
> > would appreciate if anyone can tell me the leasing right in relation to
> > CCPLs.
>
> In Canada, I think it depends if you're leasing a musical work, a video
> recording, a book, etc. It varies depending on the format.

Can you elaborate. Naturally, what is, is. However, what justification is 
given for treating one person's copyrighted works differently to another's? 
(Actually, while we are at it, what moral grounds are given for having 
compulsary licenses for some types of works and not for others?)

>
> > Also, if the cover art of the book is also CC-nc'd, I am not sure if
> > bookstores can display it to the customer, or a seller can show it to
> > a potential buyer at an online auction.
>
> Very interesting.

all the best,

drew