Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Joachim Durchholz <jo AT durchholz.org>]

Will Martin schrieb:
> Hmm.  An interesting response.  But I'm still puzzled, I'm afraid;  
> Joachim's response boils down to "you can apply the license to  
> whichever parts you choose."  But I'm not asking about what I can  
> choose to do; I'm asking about what I'm obligated to do.

Ah, OK. Then I misunderstood your question.

> From where I sit, it seems to me that a web page constitutes a single  
> composite work.  Although one web page can incorporate many logically
> distinct bits and pieces (such as HTML code, CSS code, text, and  
> images), it doesn't make sense to license each bit of those  
> separately, because every single bit is required in order for the  
> whole to make sense.

Hmm... right.
You'd be free to redistribute under whatever your personal license is if 
the web page were a "Collection".
Web pages may or may not be Collections. The relevant part seems to be 
in 1b:
> which, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents,
> constitute intellectual creations, in which the Work is included in
> its entirety in unmodified form along with one or more other
> contributions, each constituting separate and independent works in
> themselves, which together are assembled into a collective whole.

Analyzing each part of that:

> which, by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents,
> constitute intellectual creations,

OK for an included photo.

> in which the Work is included in its entirety in unmodified form along
> with one or more other contributions

OK for an included photo, too.

> each constituting separate and independent works in themselves

Now that's the problem. The components aren't "separate and independent 
works", they need to work together to form a whole.
(If your web page were a picture gallery, it would be a collection. If 
the web page made sense without the picture, it would technically 
qualify as a collection, too. One *could* make a case for background 
images, since then the whole thing would be a collection of "image" and 
"other stuff", each of which could stand separately. I wouldn't want to 
depend on this interpretation at a court though, since the language in 
the 1b clause obviously indicates that this case was not meant.)

> which together are assembled into a collective whole

OK again.

Final consideration: it would make the web page a derived work.

I'd say that the PHP script does not fall under SA, though. It generates 
the composite work, it's not part of the work.

If the background image is used in a bulletin board, the picture should 
not force the contributions of the users into the license, too: such a 
board would be a Collection (namely of the contributions).
In that case, it would actually be easier to argue that the board is a 
collection and hence the picture doesn't force the SA clause on the 
entire thing.
Drawing the line at that point surely strikes me a silly though. (One 
could also make the point that the forum without the contributions is 
still an artistic whole, while the forum without the contributions and 
without the picture is not the same artistic whole anymore. That's a 
rather vague terrain we're entering there though.)

HTH
Jo