Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Gregor Hagedorn <g.m.hagedorn AT gmail.com>]

NC potentially provides a huge benefit for the general public & science/research community as institutions (like the one I work for) release large amounts of environmental data for free, under NC. So we retain the right to make $$ from the data, but anyone can have & use it otherwise.

The stipulation of the NC clause restricts not only to make money, but also to avoid paying money (= "commercial advantage").

>From a licensors (= party granting the license) standpoint that is reasonable: If someone might be willing to pay, you don't want to loose that income. The CC NC-only clause is explicitly meant to protect the licensor from this. Consequently, no-one who, in the absence of an NC-license, would pay for this or a similar work, can use the NC licensed works.

However, this means that your assumption "anyone can have & use it otherwise" is not warranted. Very few can make use of NC-licensed content. Examples include private hobbists or fans. But (with some potential for rare special cases) not for-profit or non-profit organisations with an income and an ability to commercially pay for works.

Gregor