Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Bjorn Wijers <mailings AT bdisfunctional.net>]

Hi Tk,

NOTE: I am not CC nor a lawyer

> 1. If I decide to use the *Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 
> France license
> , does it apply only to France or all French speaking countries and even 
> to any countries (I plan to have the books in different languages and 
> people could decide to get a book in a specific language that is not the 
> national language) ? How do we know it will be valid and enforced ?

That's a lot for one question ;)

As far as I know the CC licenses are world valid and not limited to 
French speaking countries nor a specific language. The licenses are 
valid (proven in two court cases; one in The Netherlands, one in Spain). 
CC licenses are not being enforced by a specific organisation. You need 
to do this yourself.


> 2. The books will include a fairly important part of illustrations: 
> Should I use then both the text and image license at the same time for 
> each book ?

No.

It would be advisable and more clear for the end-user, but you may use 
different licenses for different elements of the books provided this has 
been labeled appropriate and made as clear as possible for the end-users.

> 3. About the non commercial aspect: I understand that I can decide to 
> sell or not our products but someone else cannot resell/sell our 
> content, correct ?

I belief this is correct. The licenses are non-exclusive and the 
rightsholder may therefor license a work under multiple conditions / 
licenses.

> 4. Do we need an express authorization of every author when it is a 
> multi authors book  or only the publishing decides and authorizes the 
> use of the license ?

Depends on the arrangements you have with the authors. The rightsholder 
may decide to use CC, so it depends on who owns the rights...

> 5. Sharealike: I udnerstand that under this specific license 
> **Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike, someone can make derivatives 
> product BUT not sell them (ie, the modifications or the derivative 
> product, correct ?

I am not completly sure, but I think you are correct.


> 6. Can my publishing company sell those derivatives by default or do I 
> need to negotiate this point with the author(s) of the modifications ?

I would say you would need to negotiate this with the derivative author(s).


> 7. Finally but not least, can someone just print the on line content or 
> scan the books and reprint them and give ithem away for free or at not 
> profit, ie, still sell it but at cost ?

Depends on the chosen license and the definition of commercial Vs 
non-commercial. If you choose the non-commercial option in your license 
I would argue that this would be possible provided the money asked is 
just for the printing costs (ie material).

Hope this helps,

All the best,

grtz
BjornW