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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Need clarification: What is "commercial"?

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: James Grimmelmann <james AT grimmelmann.net>
  • To: jake AT countersinkdg.com, Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Need clarification: What is "commercial"?
  • Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 16:44:03 -0400

Jake McKee wrote:
> I'm trying to better understand the noncommercial attribution - namely,
> what is "commercial" usage?
>
> Clearly reselling someone's work is "commercial", no questions there.
> But what about usage in commercial activity that isn't commerce? For
> instance:
>
> - Using an image in a powerpoint slide for your business venture (or
> heck, even a non-profit)
> - Using an image on a web site for your business or organization
>
> Maybe I'm just not well versed enough in the legalities, but to me,
> that's a big huge part of the point of CC - making it easy enough that I
> don't have to be a lawyer to understand. :)

The definition of "commercial" is not definitively stated anywhere, but
CC has produced a set of guidelines that may be helpful:

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5752
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/DiscussionDraftNonCommercial_Guidelines

The CC wiki has s few more links related to the guidelines:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/NonCommercial_Guidelines

including particularly a flowchart:

http://www.adamfields.com/CC-NC-allowed-uses-flowchart.pdf


The answer to your questions, according to the guidelines, are that a
business can never make a noncommercial use (unless it's merely helping
a nonprofit or a person to make a noncommercial use). The slide for the
nonprofit and the web site for a nonprofit are probably not commercial uses.

James




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