Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 14:08:30 +0000
QuotationsBook.com <quotationsbook AT gmail.com> wrote:
> I maintain www.quotationsbook.com, a website of famous
> quotations. The quotations can be reused under the
> "fair-use" provision of international copyright law.

Other provisions would in many countries
actually allow you to claim the aggregate work as your own,
surprisingly enough (I've never really thought that
was fair, but who says laws are fair?).

You see, what you've created is probably a "database",
which is certainly copyrightable in Europe, and certain
aspects of it may even be protected in the US (which does
not generally recognize a database copyright, thank
goodness).

But, being the good citizen that you are, you have decided
to release the aggregate under a free license, reflecting
your own feeling that you don't have a right to claim
others' work as your own, "hijacking public domain work".

> However, which Creative Commons license does this map to?

I would suggest the "CC-By". That is, "Attribution Only"
(attribution to the original author, that is).  The other
alternative is to describe them simply as "Public Domain"
which is essentially true -- anything that cannot be
copyrighted (such as excerpts small enough too be covered
by "fair use") would be considered "public domain", AFAIK.

> On my site, I wish to embed code and images pertaining to
> the correct CC license under which these quotations
> belong.

I personally would use a copyleft for that kind of stuff,
which means "CC-By-SA" "Attribution ShareAlike". But if
you are not concerned about "hijacking"[*] of *your* work by
a commercial entity, then you should be fine with "CC-By"
for that as well.

> Can anyone advise about licensing famous quotations
> (clearly I didn't write them myself!). The goal is to
> allow Yahoo!, Google and importantly visitors, to identify
> my quotations as usable in a specific setting, clearing up
> my currently non-existent legal framework.

Once again, I must say that I Am Not A Lawyer.  All you have
here is my understanding of the law as a user.

Cheers,
Terry


[*] Otherwise known as "embrace and extend" or publish PD
content with tiny tweaks that cost you 10 minutes to think
up, but then make the aggregate work "yours" because
copyright law presently has no respect for the rights of
the public domain, which it regards as "unclaimed property,
steal me" instead of "public property, do not litter".

Derivations which would NOT be regarded as sufficient to
remove the original copyright holder's claim to a work often
ARE considered adequate to remove a work from the public
domain.  I think this is wrong -- if it isn't "20%
different" from a PD work, I think it should still be
regarded as "belonging to the public" -- i.e. the public
deserves the same treatment as any other rights holder.

But that's NOT the way it currently works.

-- 
Terry Hancock (hancock AT AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com