Re: [Commons-l] Case law on copyleft cause for images

Hirtle summary of <https://carrollogos.blogspot. com/2016/04/us-court-correctly-interprets-creative.html> on Drauglis v. Kappa Map Group, also covered in <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license#Drau glis_v._Kappa_Map_Group.2C_LLC> <https://www.technollama.co.uk/us-court-interprets-copyleft- clause-in-creative-commons-licenses> Nemo -------- Messaggio inoltrato -------- Oggetto: RE: [SCHOLCOMM] By-SA and By-NC-SA Data: Sun, 1 Oct 2017 22:31:34 +0000 Mittente: "Peter B. Hirtle" (via scholcomm Mailing List) < scholcomm(a)lists.ala.org&gt; Eric, things may be a little clearer than you suspect. Let’s parse your hypothetical: “So imagine you are making a book from two chapters, one SA and the other SA-NC. The book (a work in its own right because of a creative cover)…” That isn’t quite right (though it doesn’t matter for the rest of your example). The cover itself is likely to have enough creativity to have its own copyright, but the book as a whole will only have its own copyright if it is itself an “original work of authorship.” This would mostly involve some creative selection or organization of the material. Slapping a copyrighted image on top of two separately copyrighted works is, in my non-legal opinion, unlikely to be enough to be considered to be a separate “original work of authorship.” The question would be whether someone could publish the same two chapters but with a different cover on it, and I think in most cases they could. “…, has to be distriibuted under the more restrictive license (SA-NC) because it staples together the two chapters.” This is incorrect. You haven’t created an adaption of the original material, so you are not required to use the SA license. Michael Carroll has a good discussion of this in his blog post on a relatively recent court case: see https://carrollogos.blogspot.com/2016/04/us-court-correctly- interprets-creative.html. In this case, a commercial publisher used a SA photograph on the cover of its street atlas. It slightly cropped the image, but the court concluded that the change was not enough to create an adaptation and hence the publisher was not required to distribute its atlas with an SA license on it. The publisher did comply with the attribution requirements of the license. In your hypothetical, if you decided to abridge the chapter, then you would be created a derivative version and would have to apply the SA license to the book. But so long as you follow the other terms in the CC license, you can put any license you like on the book as a whole (even if the cover image is the only thing actually being licensed by you). You could even omit a license on your contribution. Just don’t distribute it commercially. “But it has to do two more things: 1. Add separate license statements for each chapter.” Yes, I am postulating that you are complying with the attribution and non-commercial elements of the license, which are not dependent on whether or not the works are adapted. 2. The chapters must be separable (the staples can be easily removed) No, the physical format does not matter. Copyright matters are separate from physical formats. All you need to do is include the original license and attribution with each chapter. Peter Hirtle From: scholcomm-request(a)lists.ala.org [mailto:scholcomm-request@list s.ala.org] On Behalf Of Eric Hellman Sent: Friday, September 29, 2017 5:24 PM To: scholcomm(a)lists.ala.org Subject: Re: [SCHOLCOMM] By-SA and By-NC-SA The comments fro Billy Meinke and Peter Hirtle reflect my reality that there seem to be only gray areas when it comes to copyright. The 3.0 license defines "collections" and "adaptions". 1. "Collection" means a collection of literary or artistic works, such as encyclopedias and anthologies, or performances, phonograms or broadcasts, or other works or subject matter other than works listed in Section 1(g) below, 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. A work that constitutes a Collection will not be considered an Adaptation (as defined above) for the purposes of this License. and in doing so makes explicit how to deal with the SA vs SA-NC. So imagine you are making a book from two chapters, one SA and the other SA-NC. The book (a work in its own right because of a creative cover), has to be distriibuted under the more restrictive license (SA-NC) because it staples together the two chapters. But it has to do two more things: 1. Add separate license statements for each chapter. 2. The chapters must be separable (the staples can be easily removed) I would make the same argument for illustrations in a website or ebook. If Mahrya Carncross's colleague's guide is more of a collection than mix, then she might be in the clear. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode The 4.0 license doesn't have this explicit carve-out for collections, and appears to me to take a harder line against mixed license "arrangement" works, but at the same time says that 3.0 licensed works can be adapted into 4.0 licenses, so that's confusing to this non-lawyer. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode Eric Hellman President, Free Ebook Foundation Founder, Unglue.it<http://unglue.it> https://unglue.it/ https://go-to-hellman.blogspot.com/ twitter: @gluejar _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l