Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand discussion

[Jonathan Hunt <cc_aotearoa AT huntdesign.co.nz>]

> From: Danyl Strype <strypey AT disintermedia.net.nz> wrote:

> Kia ora koutou
> 
> I just read an article published by Students for Free Culture in the
> USA, advocating for the retirement of the No-Derivatives, and
> Non-Commercial clauses from the CC license suite:
> http://freeculture.org/blog/2012/08/27/stop-the-inclusion-of-proprietary-licenses-in-creative-commons-4-0/

(snipped)

> The ND and NC licenses have contributed to a robust global discussion
> around how copyright can work for everyone in the digital era, and
> what "free culture" and "free license" really means. They have been a
> safe paddling pool for people who want to dip their toe into a more
> open approach to licensing, particularly for institutions who have
> risk and change aversion written into their legal DNA. However I agree
> with SFC, NC and ND have done their job, and it's time to put them out
> to pasture.
> 
> Keen to hear others' thoughts on these issues.

Thank you for raising this topic Danyl.

I'd be very disappointed in seeing these license options removed. While I'm 
sympathetic to free culture, there are valid use cases for NC or ND in the 
spectrum of licensing that CC offers.

A major benefit of CC is the spectrum of license choices that allows one to 
offer content under standardised licenses with more nuances than All Rights 
Reserved.

I am a member of, and developer for, the New Zealand Alpine Club. One of our 
recent projects is a collaborative database of climbing data: 
http://climbnz.org.nz
The site content (over 7,000 routes) has been added by volunteers based on 
previous publications or personal notes, and is licensed as BY-SA-NC.

BY to ensure attribution and a link back to the source.
SA to encourage sharing of the data around the climbing community.
NC so that no-one can capture monetary value from the data without consulting 
with NZAC.

The NZAC is not adverse to people making money on publishing climbing guides 
but in this case NC was needed to encourage contributions from people who 
might otherwise try and publish their material under their own name in their 
own guide, and who don't want to see someone else making money out of the 
content they have contributed. This way they know that commercial use of the 
data will only occur with via agreement with NZAC who will aim for 
arrangements that will benefit the wider climbing community.

If NC was unavailable, and the data was only available under BY-SA, it might 
discourage such contributors. Without NC, the NZAC might reconsider offering 
the data under CC and instead define a unique license to suit their 
situation; that would be a loss to the commons.

It has nothing to do with "dipping toes" and more to do with having 
standardised options to portray a range of rights. Removing options would 
make CC less useful, IMHO.

Regards
Jonathan

Jonathan Hunt
http://huntdesign.co.nz
+64 21 529 250
PO Box 1062, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand