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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Who are "Original Authors"? (comment on 3.0 Generic)

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  • From: Peter Brink <peter.brink AT brinkdata.se>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Who are "Original Authors"? (comment on 3.0 Generic)
  • Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 18:50:33 +0200

wiki_tomos AT inter7.jp skrev:
This is a comment on the version 3.0 in a way, but not about an issue unique to the version 3.0 licenses.

In short, I think it is important to clarify who are the "Original Authors." The clarification could be in the license text, in FAQ, or both.

Any clarifications of terms used in the license needs to be included in the license text, otherwise you cannot rely upon them becoming a part of the contract.


1) Importance of understanding "Original Author"
CC Licenses of many versions, including the 3.0, require that the Original Author's name (pseudonym) be supplied in connection to copyright notices (see, 4.b.(i) of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 Generic, 4.c.(i) of CC-BY-SA 2.5, 4.b. of CC-BY 1.0 Generic, for examples.)
When one uses a CC'd Work which has been refined and transformed by multiple creators involving different CC licenses, figuring out proper attribution could become difficult. Yet it is a responsibility of a licensee to do so, and failing to perform the duty could quite possibly result in license termination.
The 3.0 draft adds one more reason to consider the understanding of "Original Author" important. Section 4.f. of the CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0 Generic says that original author is protected from being dishonored. Dishonoring, again, leads to license termination. Whose reputation does a licensee have to protect when he uses a CC-licensed work?
In some cases, a licensee might better study the nature of reputation some of the Original Authors have, in order not to cause damage.

The proposed Section 4.f deals with the moral rights of the creator/originator. This is an unalienable part of the copyright and thus the CC license cannot override it. It's also something that the U.S. - in spite of its obligations under the Berne Convention - has not yet implemented properly. Including an explicit referral to the authors moral rights in the license is btw, as far as I can see, one of the reasons for making the Generic license a non-US license. To understand the implications of 4.f. we must leave US copyright law behind, otherwise there is little hope of understanding 4.f.

To begin with, it's worth remembering that a copyright contract cannot expand or decrease the scope of a copyright. Only the lawmaker has the power to change the scope of copyrights. A copyright holder may yield, lend or sell some of his rights. The other party might agree to treat an object as if it was copyrightable. Such provisions are strictly contractual, the underlying copyright is unaffected by any provisions in the contract. The copyright holders moral rights are thus independent of any contract. Section 4.f is only a reminder to the licensee of that he must respect the artistic integrity of the originator.

Whether a party is in breach of a contract is of course governed by contract law and not copyright law. As long as the licensee and the licensor live in the same country this is not a problem, but when the parties live in different countries things get more trickier. Since there are no uniform international rules on how to make choices of law less can be said with certainty about this issue. As far as Europe goes, the presumption seems to be that (when it comes to copyright contracts) courts will choose the law of the jurisdiction where the licensor lives.


2) Examples

As I understood, Original Author whose reputation a licensee has to pay attention to are probably as follows:
[ snip ]

This will depend on where (in which jurisdiction) the licensee publishes the work. If it's in a civil code jurisdiction then the copyright holder may assert his moral rights _regardless_ of what is stated in the license. A US author, who have used the US license, may assert his moral rights in France, should he wish to.


To illustrate the formulation, here are some hypothetical cases.
==Case 1: ==

Alice writes a poem, releases it under CC-BY-SA 2.5 Generic. Bob makes it a song lyric, and releases it under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Generic. Cathy use the lyric a in her musical which is under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Generic.
And suppose that Cathy's musical is very controversial, and Alice's reputation is damaged.
Is is possible for Alice to terminate Cathy's licensee status for the reason 4.f of the CC-BY-SA 3.0 Generic?
Alice's poem is under CC-BY-SA 2.5 Generic, not 3.0. But Bob's lyric heavily relies upon Alices' poem. Is Alice one of the Original Authors of Bob's lyric?
My preliminary answer is that Alice can terminate Cathy's license. The license "Work," the lyric was authored by Alice and Bob. And when Bob released a part of Alice's poem under 3.0 Generic, Alice gained the new right to terminate her licensee based on 4.f.

This issue is more complex than it seems. First we must know where Cathy has made her musical public, we must know if it's in a civil code jurisdiction or a common law jurisdiction. Then we must know where Alice, Bob and Cathy lives. Let us assume that Cathy's musical was performed in Germany and the script has been published in a German website. For the sake of the example we also assume that Alice lives in Sweden, Bob in Belgium and Cathy in Germany. Now we can proceed with more inquiries about the nature of Bob's and Cathy's works.

We must know if Bob merely edited Alice's poem, i.e. moved a word or two to a new line etc., or if he adapted the poem in such a way that a new original work was created. If Bob is only an editor his rights are only contractual, but if he is the creator of an original work, then he has his own (semi-independent) copyright to the work. If Bob's adaptation was only inspired by Alice's poem, then he has a fully independent right and does not need to use the CC-license at all.

If Bob is an editor, then Alice _owns_ his edition (copyright wise). NB! an edited version of a work is _not_ a new work, it's a copy of another work. Bob has no rights to his edition other than those the license gives him. If this is the case we must, before we proceed, determine if Bob has, as far as the _contract_ goes, distributed Alice's work or a adaption of his own making. To do that we need to make a guess on how a court would interpret section 1.b and 1.j (Adaptation and Work) of the new generic license.

It's a fair statement, I think, that since 1.b now uses the term adaptation (instead of derivative work) an European court will use the standard methods for determining if a work is an adaptation of another, for this task. The result will be that _if_ someone merely edits a work he will only be seen as a re-distributor. In our example Bob would thus not have the right to sublicense Alice's work (see 4.a). If Bob has only edited Alice's work, he and Cathy has in fact not entered a contractual agreement at all. Cathy licenses an edition of Alice's work, which she obtained from Bob. However, if Bob has indeed made an (original) adaption, then he has offered it to Cathy under a new instance of the generic CC-license. In this later case Cathy has entered into an contractual relation with Bob, but not with Alice.

Under current EC-law we are probably right if we assume that the contract btw Alice and Bob is governed by Swedish law, and that any contract btw Bob and Cathy is governed by Belgian law. In case of Bob being only an editor Cathy has entered a contract with Alice, and this contract is governed by Swedish law.

So - can Alice terminate Cathy's license? That depends - is section 7.a in accordance with Swedish law? IMO, an automatic termination will be considered unfair by a Swedish court. Alice would be wise to notify Cathy before accusing her of a breach of contract. Note that Alice has two options in this situation. She might sue Cathy in a German court for violating her moral rights, or she might notify Cathy of her violation of the terms of the contract and then terminate the license, and if Cathy does not comply (stops performing the musical) then Alice may sue Cathy in a German court for copyright violation...

Can Bob terminate Cathy's license? Only if Cathy has (in his opinion) violated _his_ moral rights.

==Case 2: ==

Drothy writes a script, releases it under CC-BY 2.5 Generic. Edward makes it a short story, and releases it under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Generic. Fred makes it a controversial political treatise which he releases under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Generic.
And suppose that Drothy's reputation is damaged by the controversial political treatise.
Is it possible for Drothy, whose script is under CC-BY 2.5 Generic, to terminate Fred's licensee status based on 4.f. of CC-BY-SA 3.0 Generic?
I think the answer is no. Drothy, whose work is under CC-BY 2.5, never became one of the Original Authors in Edward's short story. Drothy's script is still available under CC-BY 2.5 and nothing else. Fred is free to use script under CC-BY 2.5 and release it CC-BY-SA 3.0, but again, it does not mean any part of Drothy's work is under CC-BY-SA 3.0.

In this case Dorothy and Fred has not entered a contractual relation. Dorothy may try and sue Fred for violating her moral rights but that is probably not an easy case to win. The nature of Fred's work is so different from Dorothy's that it's quite probable that a court would find that Fred's work is a new and independent work.


==Case 3: ==


Here we mix US legal issues with non-US. I'll refrain from making any comment -it's simply to much of an uncertain situation.

3) How to identify the names of the Original Author

[ snip ]

But another big factor is a mistake in upstream attribution. If some of the previous creators have incorrectly understood the license terms, they might supply less names than they should. It is perhaps quite important to check if that is the case, and make necessary corrections. Mistake in proper attribution it seems, is still a license violation and a ground for terminating the liense.

It's in fact a violation of copyright law as well. A licensee must always make sue that he attributes properly. It's mandatory under the vast majority of all copyright laws.


/Peter Brink




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