According to an "email release" CSPAN is going to shift to a cc-by-nc type license. Not quite good enough for us to use, but certainly a nice step.
On 3/7/07, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
According to an "email release" CSPAN is going to shift to a cc-by-nc type license. Not quite good enough for us to use, but certainly a nice step.
Nice step= a significantly increased chance of finding out exactly how the courts define non commercial?
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Nice step= a significantly increased chance of finding out exactly how the courts define non commercial?
Is that really big deal? Isn't non-commercial easy to define, as in "you can use this in your own stuff, just don't make money of of it." Surely the full text of the license covers this pretty well?
--Oskar
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Nice step= a significantly increased chance of finding out exactly how the courts define non commercial?
Is that really big deal? Isn't non-commercial easy to define, as in "you can use this in your own stuff, just don't make money of of it." Surely the full text of the license covers this pretty well?
--Oskar
Define making money out of it. If I'm a comercial company but sell at cost is that legit? What if I have a holywood accountant defineing cost?
What if I'm a for proffit but I'm working under contract to a charrity? What if I put it on my blog but my blog is hosted by someone else who puts ads on the blog?
Things are never clean and simple when there is money involved.
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Define making money out of it. If I'm a comercial company but sell at cost is that legit? What if I have a holywood accountant defineing cost?
If you're selling it to make a profit, it's not non-commercial. You are engaging in commerce after all.
What if I'm a for proffit but I'm working under contract to a charrity?
If you are using it to make a profit, then that would be a violation.
What if I put it on my blog but my blog is hosted by someone else who puts ads on the blog?
I'm not a lawyer, but if you read the whole thing it says this in section 4b:
"You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the exchange of copyrighted works."
This, I think, is pretty clear. I'm not a lawyer, but I interpret it to mean that you can certainly put it up on your website for others to download, and even if your host has ads its ok because you are not exercising this right in a way that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation".
As I said, I'm not a lawyer, but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of murky legal ground here. I mean, commerce is a pretty well defined concept. I don't see how this would be such an unclear area.
--Oskar
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Define making money out of it. If I'm a comercial company but sell at cost is that legit? What if I have a holywood accountant defineing cost?
If you're selling it to make a profit, it's not non-commercial. You are engaging in commerce after all.
By defintion selling at cost means not makeing a proffit.
The fun comes in when defineing cost remeber Forrest Gump made a net loss
What if I put it on my blog but my blog is hosted by someone else who puts ads on the blog?
I'm not a lawyer, but if you read the whole thing it says this in section 4b:
So what about the person hosting the blog?
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
By defintion selling at cost means not makeing a proffit.
But the license doesn't talk about you actually making a profit, it talks about if you use it in a way that would imply commercial gain. Meaning, if you engage in commerce intended to earn you money, you've crossed the line.
The fun comes in when defineing cost remeber Forrest Gump made a net loss
Still, it was a commercial enterprise.
So what about the person hosting the blog?
I'm guessing that he would have take it down if sent a DMCA takedown notice since he is exercising "the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage". As I said, I'm not a lawyer so I'm not sure, but this cannot be too complicated for a legal professional to parse.
I'm not saying it's not tricky, but all law is tricky. That's why you go to school for a bunch of years. Still, since the sticking point here is the concept of "commerce" and "commercial gain", I imagine that this is an area where the boundaries are pretty clear. I mean, come on, there are libraries filled with law books that deal with companies and charities and tax law and such. How is this a "murky" part of jurisprudence?
--Oskar
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
By defintion selling at cost means not makeing a proffit.
But the license doesn't talk about you actually making a profit, it talks about if you use it in a way that would imply commercial gain. Meaning, if you engage in commerce intended to earn you money, you've crossed the line.
Sure If you can prove I'm intendeding to earn money
Still, it was a commercial enterprise.
What If I used the same tricks on something I claimed wasn't?
I'm not saying it's not tricky, but all law is tricky. That's why you go to school for a bunch of years. Still, since the sticking point here is the concept of "commerce" and "commercial gain", I imagine that this is an area where the boundaries are pretty clear. I mean, come on, there are libraries filled with law books that deal with companies and charities and tax law and such. How is this a "murky" part of jurisprudence?
Because there are a lot of people out there employed to see that it remains murky.
On 3/8/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote: [...]
Sure If you can prove I'm intendeding to earn money
[...]
What If I used the same tricks on something I claimed wasn't?
[...]
Because there are a lot of people out there employed to see that it remains murky.
These are all arguments that have nothing to do with with the legal question though, these only have to do with tactics lawyers employ. You could use these arguments to say that murder is a murky legal territory. "If i can prove that I didn't intend to earn money, then it's manslaughter", "I could claim that I wasn't murdering someone" and "There are a lot of people out there employed to see that the case remains murky".
See what I mean? The essential legal question is this: is the material used in a way intended for commercial advantage or monetary gain? There is nothing in that sentence that isn't well defined. Just because you can argue about whether something was commercial or not is irrelevant because you can argue about anything in law.
--Oskar
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a lawyer, but if you read the whole thing it says this in section 4b:
"You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the exchange of copyrighted works."
So, which of the following activities are allowed, and which are not?
1) Sending the work on a CD-R to anyone who asks for it, but charging them for the cost of the CD 2) Sending the work on a CD-R to anyone who asks for it, but charging them the cost of shipping 3) Using the work as part of an advertisement 4) Using the work on a webpage that also contains ads I placed there 5) Using the work on a webpage that also contains ads placed there by my webhost 6) Using the work on a webpage that also contains Amazon referral links 7) Using the work on a webpage that links to another webpage that contains ads I placed there 8) Using the work on a webpage that also solicits donations 9) Sending the work to someone in exchange for goods or services
A strict reading of the license clause would seem to prohibit everything except #9.
On 08/03/07, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/7/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not a lawyer, but if you read the whole thing it says this in section 4b:
"You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with the exchange of copyrighted works."
So, which of the following activities are allowed, and which are not?
- Sending the work on a CD-R to anyone who asks for it, but charging
them for the cost of the CD 2) Sending the work on a CD-R to anyone who asks for it, but charging them the cost of shipping 3) Using the work as part of an advertisement 4) Using the work on a webpage that also contains ads I placed there 5) Using the work on a webpage that also contains ads placed there by my webhost 6) Using the work on a webpage that also contains Amazon referral links 7) Using the work on a webpage that links to another webpage that contains ads I placed there 8) Using the work on a webpage that also solicits donations 9) Sending the work to someone in exchange for goods or services
A strict reading of the license clause would seem to prohibit everything except #9.
How does #9 fit with the "commercial advantage" statement?
Peter
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Define making money out of it. If I'm a comercial company but sell at cost is that legit? What if I'm a for proffit but I'm working under contract to a charrity? What if...
There is no consensus on many of these "what ifs". See http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/User:Angela/NonCommercial_use_cases for some other examples.
Angela
Angela wrote:
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Define making money out of it. If I'm a comercial company but sell at cost is that legit? What if I'm a for proffit but I'm working under contract to a charrity? What if...
There is no consensus on many of these "what ifs". See http://scratchpad.wikia.com/wiki/User:Angela/NonCommercial_use_cases for some other examples.
I've quickly reviewed the list, and agreed on some but not others. Others are likely to come to a similar conclusion but with a different division of opinions. In most of those situations it depends on the particular circumstances.
As I see it commercial advantage is a purposive test. It needs to be looked at in the context of a person's entire activity. Whether a single sale of something yields a profit does not matter in itself. If you give away basic software in the hope that the recipient will later buy the super-duper advanced version of the same software that giveaway is done for the purpose of commercial advantage. If you sell below cost with the intent of having a business loss that you can claim on your tax return that is for commercial advantage.
Going through a series of what-ifs sounds very much like the George Carlin skit where the kids go to confession to confuse the priest with the weirdest sinful circumstances they can think of.
Ec
Oskar Sigvardsson schreef:
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Nice step= a significantly increased chance of finding out exactly how the courts define non commercial?
Is that really big deal? Isn't non-commercial easy to define, as in "you can use this in your own stuff, just don't make money of of it." Surely the full text of the license covers this pretty well?
There's an interesting discussion going on on the Citizendium fora about licensing. Some people want to use the cc-sa-nc license for new content ("preferrably also for Wikipedia-derived content", according to one contributor!).
In another cz forum, someone has suggested linking ISBN's automatically to a bookseller, with citizendium earning money in an affiliate program.
It is (in my opinion) totally unclear if these two suggestions are compatible: if citizendium republishing the contributions of others with added links would be a "manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation" (which is the legal description).
Larry Sanger's current suggestion: using the GFDL may be the simplest thing to do... Probably a good decision.
Eugene
On 3/7/07, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/7/07, Guettarda guettarda@gmail.com wrote:
According to an "email release" CSPAN is going to shift to a cc-by-nc type license. Not quite good enough for us to use, but certainly a nice step.
Nice step= a significantly increased chance of finding out exactly how the courts define non commercial?
Unfortunately, it says they're going to shift to license *like* cc-by-nc, not to cc-by-nc, so the definition of non-commercial for that license probably won't have any bearing on the definition under cc-by-nc.
While we're posing hypotheticals, here are some more:
1) Giving copies away to students of a school which charges tuition. 2) Making copies to distribute around the office to employees. 3) Printing out a copy to keep on your office bookshelf for reference. 4) Including the work in your office intranet site.
Anthony