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cc-licenses - Re: [gnu.org #238740] Derivatives of dual-licensed Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike and GFDL works

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: evan AT bad.dynu.ca (Evan Prodromou)
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [gnu.org #238740] Derivatives of dual-licensed Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike and GFDL works
  • Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 10:54:19 -0400

On Thu, May 05, 2005 at 10:07:24AM -0400, Greg London wrote:

> I think this is the root of confusion.
> A license cannot prohibit the author from making the same
> work available under a different license.

If by "author" you mean the original author and licensor, yes, that's
true.

If by "author" you mean the creator of a derivative work, you're wrong.

A licensor has pretty wide berth in making demands on creators of
derivative works. If the licensor says (through the license), "You may
only make derivative works under these conditions: A, B, C", you have
to do A, B, and C if you're going to make derivative works. If you
don't want to do those things, under copyright law you don't have a
right to make derivative works.

Given that the conditions people put on making derivative works range
from "give me money" to "pet a kitten", I find it hard to believe that
requiring derivative works to be available under a particular license
is somehow unreasonable.

> Copyleft and ShareAlike don't work that way.

*Sputter* That's _exactly_ how they work! The Licensor, through the
license, grants licensees the right to make derivative works (among
other rights), provided that they meet the requirement of licensing
the derivative work under an identical (or quite similar) license.

Unlike other copyleft licenses, the ShareAlike says that the
derivative work can be distributed _only_ under the terms of that
license (or a later version, or an equivalent iCommons license). My
read of the GFDL is that it also requires that derivative works _only_
be available under the GFDL, but I might be wrong on that.

> You really have to think of it as two completely separated
> works, each with their own license.

Why? That's a false assumption. They aren't two works: it's one work,
with two optional licenses. You can exercise the rights under one
license if you meet the terms of that license, or you can exercise the
rights under the other license if you meet the terms of the other
license.

I agree that if you make this false assumption you can justify
ignoring the terms of the licenses that the Licensor has provided. Of
course, you can imagine all sorts of other things that would justify
that, too. All of them would also be false.

> Bob can apply the SAME modiications to Alice's work,
> once to teh GNU-GPL version, once to the CC-SA version.

What a crock! There aren't two versions, there's one version. There
aren't two derivatives: there's one derivative. The universe doesn't
split in two timelines just because Alice allows people to use a work
under one of two licenses at their option.

Could you do me a favor and go back and read the other responses I've
made on this subject? I kind of debunked this "multiple universe" idea
a few messages back.

~Evan




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