Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Kat Walsh <kat AT creativecommons.org>]

One-way compatibility means that you may take content created under
the first license and release your contributions to adaptations under
the second license, but you may not take content released under the
second license and release the material you contribute to adaptations
under the first license. With two-way compatibility, you may go in
either direction. Neither case allows you to simply relicense
unaltered material under the other license: you may only release your
contributions to adaptations under the compatible license.

One-way compatibility may be desirable in cases where two-way
compatibility is not possible--often, because the candidate license
was developed to address a particular purpose or situation that the
other license was not. For example, software licenses often contain
terms that general-purpose content licenses like the CC licenses do
not. These provisions could prove to be insurmountable obstacles to
two-way compatibility, but they do not necessarily foreclose the
possibility of one-way compatibility. Is this a possibility CC should
consider, or should reciprocity be a prerequisite?

-- 
Kat Walsh, Counsel, Creative Commons
IM/IRC/@/etc: mindspillage * phone: please email first
Help us support the commons: https://creativecommons.net/donate/
California Registered In-House Counsel #801759
CC does not and cannot give legal advice. If you need legal advice,
please consult your attorney.