Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

>From my very basic understanding, it seems that the Creative Common
> license by-nc-nd will do the trick.


> So, the type of license I envisage will state that the end user:
>
> * Can make copies and distribute the images freely, as long as..
>
> * The license agreement, unaltered, is always copied and
>    accompanies the images or copies of them.

The license, or a URL to the license, or some such fascimile.

> * That no commercial use may be made of these pictures without the
>   prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Attribution with a URL pointing to licensing info for the photographs
is required to carry the URL wherever the work travels, which would
satisify the bullet above about keeping the license agreement,
and would also make it easy for others to contact the original author
to get permission to use the work commercially.


> * That "derivative" works are NOT distributed, eg, images are
> distributed only in their original form, with no modifications. Users,
> however, can still make local modifications (as described above, such as
> cropping or floodfill the background), but the user is NOT allowed to
> distribute those they have modified.

NoDerivatives prevents distribution of derivatives.
I believe local modifications are allowed by way of "Fair Use",
simply meaning that no author can prevent it, so it comes default
with all licenses. NoDerivs will prevent people from distributing
those derivatives.

> * These images can be displayed publicly.

The originals can be displayed for NonCommercial purposes.

> * These images may be moved to a different medium (e.g., from
> computer to printout, website to an iPAQ, etc)

yep

> * The license applies worldwide, and applies to all copies and
> locally-made derivative works.

I'm pretty sure. I'm a little fuzzy about the world-wide application.
If a CC license doesn't exist for a particular country, then I don't
think it applies in that country. I believe that's how it works.
I'm not sure if CC-BY-NC-ND is available everywhere. probably
most places though.

> Have I understood correctly?

Yes, I believe CC-BY-NC-ND will do the trick.
I am not a lawyer. It is too late at night to even THINK
about the words "legal advice".

> (Note, at a later date, we will allow some modified images to be
> distributed, but only those owned by our charity, and not those where the
> copyright ownership lies with a professional library - I guess we will
> need
> by-nc-sa for these).

NC-SA is a personal pet peeve of mine.

If you (or your charity) is the copyright owner,
you might consider either going BY-SA and allow
anyone (including yourself or others) to sell
the work and any derivatives. This would be the
Linux style approach that allows RedHat-like
companies to sell it.

Or, if you want to be sole proprieter for selling
the works, then I'd suggest going with CC-NC.

There isn't much usefulness in combining NC and SA, IMHO.
NC-SA will force everyone to allow their work to be
derived but not sold. Which means that you will only
be able to sell your original works or derivatives
only if you get all the author's permissions who
contributed to modifying it.

Greg London

-- 
Bounty Hunters: Metaphors for Fair IP laws
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