Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Peter Brink <peter.brink AT brinkdata.se>]

Hannes skrev:
> I'm also getting even more confused because of this particular comic
> strip. When reading the parts of the legal code that regards SA I also
> get the impression that collective works are not subject to the SA
> terms as are derivative works.  How come the comics suggests that
> they are, or is not the "collage" in their example clearly a
> collective work?
>
> I'm referring to the topmost example on this webpage:
> http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/comics4
>

A work is any kind of expression of an idea, thought, concept or piece 
of fact that qualifies for copyright protection.

A derivative work is a work that transforms the expressions found in 
another work. If a work reuses expressions from another work that are 
not in themselves works then the result is _not_ a derivative work.

A collage may or may not be a derivative work. It all depends on whether 
the parts "borrowed" from other works are identifiable as parts of a 
specific work. For example, if I take three photos showing nature 
scenery and cut of the upper, sky, parts and use these in a collage, 
then I have most likely not used another work. The pieces of sky photos 
I've used are most likely not, in themselves, original works of authorship.

If I took 100 photos and cut those in tiny pieces and used those tiny 
pieces to create a mosaic, have I then created a derivative work based 
on the 100 photos? Does it matter whether I use all or just a part of 
all the tiny pieces?

As long as you cannot "see" or identify any of the 100 photos in my 
mosaic then the answer to both of the questions is no.

As for collective works, a collection of pictures is a collective work; 
every picture is an independent work. You would of course need the 
permission from all copyright holders to publish the collection. It's 
only when you transform a set of pictures into a new picture you create 
a derivative work based on those pictures.

/Peter Brink