Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Stefan Tiedje <Stefan-Tiedje AT addcom.de>]

spamm thiss wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> We'd like to be able to extend the 
> creative commons-attribution-sharealike-noncommercial license to cover 
> noncommercial organizations that have a turnover above a certain 
> amount.
>
> This /seems/ to be a trivial extension to the license, but would be 
> extremely useful for our organization (an NGO)
>
> How does one go about extending the license? Is it even possible? And 
> are there any (legal) risks associated with doing this?

I am thinking all the time about something like that. The main advantage
for cc licenses is the ease of use. A noncommercial license is easy for
noncommercial use, but doesn't cover commercial use. That means each and
every commercial user needs to get in contact to clarify the
compensation. If you just clarify the commercial use with an addition,
this would be no problem, but it would not be standardized, and thus the
commercial user still needs to get in contact and read and understand
all the legal stuff.
My suggestion would be to create something like a rule, which I would
call "Fair Compensation" (could have an icon like the other cc parts)
Then this could be just added to a non commercial license, that means
"Fair Compensation required" or could be added to license which allows
commercial use and the would mean "Fair Compensation encouraged" (more
like in shareware).
The "required" version would be no problem at the moment, the
"encouraged" version would require a change of that cc-license, as its
important that its part of the whole license, and that should be an
unchangeble part of the license.

A standard for the definition of "Fair Compensation" should be found.
My Idea would be that the aim is, to let the user decide about the
amount of compensation, but have clear rules how to find that amount.
I think it should be clear that the aim is never to sue anybody...

Just as inspirational idea how "Fair Compensation" rules could be
outlined, I added this to my elswise GPLed St.ools (I might want to
change the license to cc in the future):

FAIR COMPENSATION OUTLINED:

The author of the work did put a lot of effort into the work and does
need some kind of compensation. Without that, support and further
development or new works will not be possible. To support my work I ask
those who use the work commercialy for a fair compensation. This can be
money or their own works or any other kind of feedback. The work remains
free. It is absolutely fine to make millions of dollars with it as long
as its reconsilable with your conscience. I will not justify what you
think the work is worth. But I will give an hint what a fair
compensation might be.

For example: You put the work into a collection of 99 other works on a
CD-ROM. Lets say you sold 1000 pieces and after considering all costs
and your own effort (which should be compensated as well) remains a
profit of 1000 Dollars. Appropriate could be for example 10% of the part
of the program (1% 0f 1000 $ = 10 $ and 10% of those 10 $ would be 1 $).
In this case what would make sense is to send me a copy of your collection.

Another example: You use my library to programm a customized software
for one of your clients. You charge 50$ per hour and the time you could
save by the use of my library is approximatly 3 hours, you could say
thanks by dividing it by 3 (50 $ cheaper for the client, 50 $ for you
and 50 $ for me) or compare it to the prize of a comparable commercial
library and give me part or all of that. Or any other model you can
think of :-)

Yet another example: You sell a CD with a special distribution of my
algorithmic music programs. In this case as you are also using my name
for selling it, my part could be in the range of 30%-50% of the profit
(300 $ - 500 $ per 1000 $ profit)

Or you play my music on the radio, then it would be fair to pay the same
as you pay for others, which would be the normal fee that is usually
defined by the intellectual property rights associations like BMI, Gema,
SACEM...

I will promise to continue the support and the development of my work as
long as the compensation will be in the range of a normal income for the
amount of work I put in.
It does make sense to consider your own income as appropriate. (I hope a
lot of millionares will like it.)