Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Thinh Nguyen <thinh AT creativecommons.org>]

The key distinction is between "Collections" and "Adaptations"--which is
subject to this "override" sentence: "For the avoidance of doubt, where the
Work is a musical work, performance or phonogram, the synchronization of the
Work in timed-relation with a moving image ("synching") will be considered
an Adaptation for the purpose of this License."

So if there is "synching" of the musical work to video, then the result is
always an Adaptation, which is not permitted under the ND license. However,
if the video and music are not synched, but instead meets the definition of
Collection (the relevant part of the definition being: "is included in its
entirety in unmodified form along with one or more other contributions, each
constituting separate and independent works in themselves"), then it is a
Collection and is permitted by the license.

So it would not be accurate to say that the video can only be blank or
noise, or that there are no circumstances under which you can combine video
and an musical work licensed under ND. However, in most circumstances, a
producer will probably want to introduce some element of synching in a
movie, so the ND license may not be the best choice if that is what you
intend the musical work to be used for.

Thinh Nguyen
Counsel, Science Commons