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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Clarification needed - Copyleft AND Share-Alike with Images

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Clarification needed - Copyleft AND Share-Alike with Images
  • Date: Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:10:48 -0500

rob AT robmyers.org wrote:
Image libraries seem to have no trouble defining the circumstances in which use
of their copyrighted material requires payment, or the scope and nature of use
that they will consider at all. They do not use an existing narrow right, they
use an existing blanket right and give permission to exercise this right in
narrow circumstances with carefully worded limits and requirements.

So real-world experience shows that the case of illustrations doesn't need a new
narrow right, it doesn't need the meaning of any legal terms to be changed, and
it doesn't need the scope of the license to be limited discretely by the
terminology used by the law.

For a copyleft license the case of illustration needs the scope of the license
to expand to cover reproduction in a few carefully defined cases where
reproduction rather than derivation creates a context where "share and share
alike" is broken.

Something I have been wondering about is whether there would be a way to use license compatibility to:
(1) keep BY-SA itself unchanged,
(2) create a more stringent BY-StrictSA for photographers who object to this use,
(3) allow works formed from the combination of BY-SA and BY-StrictSA works to be redistributed under some SA-type license, and
(4) not allow an end run around the goals of either license.

The point is that those who like BY-SA with its current GPL-ish level of restriction and those who would prefer a stricter BY-StrictSA that would have the share-alike provision kick in sooner are both looking for a good share-alike license. Unlike with NC, neither of them wants to put additional restrictions on how the work is used; they just disagree about how broadly the share-alike rule should apply. A good compatibility scheme might mitigate some of the dangers of creating new kinds of SA licenses.

I remain skeptical of what I'm calling the StrictSA project, but the discussion over it is opening up some very interesting and important possibilities.

James




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