On 10/27/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
The CC licenses 'solves' the legally unclear boundary of derivative works by claiming that anything which includes the work which doesn't meet their criteria of collective works is derivative:
"or any other form in which the Work may be recast, transformed, or adapted, except that a work that constitutes a Collective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this License."
I'm not so sure that doing so is wise: The boundaries of a derivative work are created by law, not the copyright holder. So while we can pretend to declare what a derivative work actually is, should our definition disagree with the law we will lose that argument every time.
It clearly says "for the purpose of this license," meaning that this is what it is referring to when it talks about derivative works in the rest of the license. I think you are misreading it.
Their definition of a collective work is similar to the GFDLs:
Compare
"in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form, along with a number of other contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole."
with
"A compilation of the Document or its derivatives with other separate and independent documents or works"
The full quote from CC-BY-SA-2.5 is:
"Collective Work" means a work, such as a periodical issue, anthology or encyclopedia, in which the Work in its entirety in unmodified form, along with a number of other contributions, constituting separate and independent works in themselves, are assembled into a collective whole. A work that constitutes a Collective Work will not be considered a Derivative Work (as defined below) for the purposes of this License.
Which is pretty clear, and gives some pretty practical examples. That's what I mean by "more clear". GDFL gives no real indication what it is referring to when it says "compilation".
Notice the words 'separate and independent' ? This is the key criteria used define collective/aggregate works in both the licenses.
Right. Except that one is much clearer in its use of them than the other one. The CC-BY-SA-2.5 clause makes it pretty clear what the authors of the license have in mind -- it is a nice mix of legalese and readable text. The GDFL clause does not make it very clear -- it is legalese. That's all I'm saying.
This is, in part, a stylistic difference between CC licenses and some other licenses. The CC licenses are written in a way which combines non-binding narrative in the body of the license proper while most other licenses provide such content in separate documents or as part of a preface. The inclusion of such materials makes the license appear more friendly, but it could be argued that doing so may result in misunderstanding.
I fail to see how articulating the intentions of the license will create more misunderstanding than resorting only to terse legalese, but I suppose this is a different of opinion.
FF