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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Aggregation and Stronger SA

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: David Chart <bydosa AT davidchart.com>
  • To: Development of Creative Commons licenses <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Aggregation and Stronger SA
  • Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2012 10:07:52 +0900


On 2012/04/22, at 2:03, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:

> (1) The text would be an extension of the photographs, for example by
> describing them, or

That's a clear case, and would be covered by the CC-BY-SA licence as well, I
think. (Beyond the level of description that counts as fair use, of course.)

> (2) The book could be a combined creative work (depends on a court seeing
> the
> name program apply to any kind work).

I have to say that the chances of that happening strike me as somewhere
between "slim" and "none". There is just no linguistic precedent for calling
an illustrated book a program.

>
> The second case would hit in any case where the photographs are not just
> selected at random but selected to fit the text *and form a larger whole*.
>
> So the only way to create an unfree book which uses your GPL photographs
> would
> be to create a *bad* book. Like a documentation of Mauna Loa using random
> images from Seattle and Berlin.
>
> As soon as the theme of the images fits the text, it’s no mere aggregation
> anymore and they have to adhere the copyleft.

I think it's much more analogous to binary kernel modules than an extension
to a larger program. A binary kernel module is obviously not written at
random, or with no reference to the rest of the kernel.

If "selection to fit a larger whole" creates a copyleft obligation, it should
be impossible to have Linux distributions that include unfree, or even
free-but-GPL-incompatible, software, because a Linux distribution is a larger
whole.

I do think drew is right to believe that the GPL does not, in fact, do what
he wants. The current usages of the licence strongly suggests it doesn't.

--
David Chart
http://www.davidchart.com/





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