Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>]

On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 22:53:45 +0200
Henri Sivonen <hsivonen AT iki.fi> wrote:
> On Jan 24, 2006, at 12:32, Henri Sivonen wrote:
> > Can we use a CC license to permit derivative works to
> > the extent creating such a work would infringe on our
> > copyright while being silent on whatever decency rights
> > the depicted people have?

As you say, it isn't up to you to grant a "model release" or
right to use someone's likeness (e.g. of a celebrity, who
can sue over such use).  AFAIK, that sort of issue is
completely orthogonal to your copyright in the image
itself, so you can reasonably use a CC license that allows
derivation, and none of this falls on your head.

OTOH, it *is* a bit of a can of worms, because it's very
likely that users of your material are not aware of this
legal issue or haven't thought of it.  So it would probably
be a service to them for you to explicitly disclaim
responsibility for releases, likeness-usage, and so on
in the works (I'm not really using the right language here
-- you can probably find some boilerplate for it on the web
somewhere. Or of course, you could ask a lawyer ;-) ).

NASA has something like this. Being produced purely on
government funding, most NASA images are "Copyright Free"
which is sort of like "Public Domain" and sort of like
"CC-By", but they do specifically mention that you may be
limited in your use of certain images, such as astronaut's
likenesses.

For example, it would be illegal to use a picture of a Space
Shuttle astronaut and Gimp-in an image of a product that you
are selling. That's because you're implying an endorsement,
and so you'd have to get that astronaut's permission to "use
his likeness" in that way.

OTOH, it's perfectly legal to display your product in front
of a deep sky image from Hubble Space Telescope (and you'll
see lots of examples of that in print and web advertising).

So, in short, my assessment is that you're all right, but it
might be good to mention this problem to visitors, if the
material is likely to raise such issues.

However, in all of these cases, its the person who makes the
inappropriate use of the material who gets the heat for it,
you are not liable for releasing it under a license that
allows distribution.

The laws in question aren't really copyright laws, but
rather laws governing specific kinds of expression --
exceptions to freedom-of-speech protections based on such
issues as libel, fraud, etc.

This is from my knowledge of United States law. In
Europe and other places, the situation may be different (in
Europe, I believe these things might get mixed up with
so-called "moral right" of the images' authors, though I
imagine that likenesses are still protected somehow).

And lastly, I Am Not A Lawyer.

Cheers,
Terry

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