Development of Creative Commons licenses

[James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>]

Erik Moeller wrote:
> A couple of simple questions:
> 
> Can CC-BY material be incorporated into CC-BY-SA material?

Yes.

> Can CC-BY material be incorporated into GFDL material?

Yes.

> We have such compatibility from BSD or PD into GPL, and it's pretty
> important in that context -- but it's not clear to me if the same
> principle is applicable for these scenarios. CC-BY seems to require
> that no new restrictions can be applied beyond the original licensing,
> and that would seem to make the licenses incompatible. Is that
> interpretation correct? If so, can this problem be solved? It seems
> that at least unidirectional compatibility would be desirable.

The no-new-restrictions rule refers to restrictions placed by the
licensee on the work supplied by the original licensor.  Anyone who
comes across the CC-BY-SA material or the GFDL material is free to use
the original CC-BY work under the original CC-BY terms.  The licensee is
free to license her contributions to the combined work on whatever terms
she likes, including CC-BY-SA and GFDL.

James