[Foundation-l] Creative Commons publishes report on defining "Non-commercial"

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Hay (Husky)

15 Sep 2009 15 Sep '09

9:39 a.m.

This might interest some of you: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial This is the long-awaited study on a large survey on how people interpret the terms "non-commercial" and "commercial", like in the NC-licenses from Creative Commons. Pretty interesting stuff for people interested in free culture in general, although with its 255 pages this might be something that you would rather like to skim through instead of fully read :) For a summary of the findings read: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17127 -- Hay

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jamesmikedupont＠googlemail.com

15 Sep 15 Sep

10:03 a.m.

This brings up my favorite subject: Is working on Free software or Wikipedia defined as Commercial non profit work? It is my opinion that we should be careful of people who are using restricted software for contributions because it might be in violation of some licenses. commercial business activities, nonprofit business activities, or revenue-generating business activities, that is what free software, and wikipedia is, in my opinion. please comment, I am not a lawyer and would like your opinion. Sources: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937676 The "non-commercial use" text is based on the Microsoft Software License Terms for Office Home and Student 2007 products. In the Microsoft Software License Terms, the "non-commercial use" text identifies the use of the product. You may install one licensed copy of the software on three devices in your household. The software is not licensed for any commercial business activities, nonprofit business activities, or revenue-generating business activities. http://www.cmu.edu/computing/software/license-office/licenses/msca.html Restrictions: Use for academic, non-commercial purposes only http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.mspx#EEB PERSONAL AND NON-COMMERCIAL USE LIMITATION. Unless otherwise specified, the Services are for your personal and non-commercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from the Services. And here : On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 11:39 AM, Hay (Husky) <huskyr(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Nikola Smolenski

10:48 a.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Creative Commons publishes report on defining "Non-commercial"

jamesmikedupont(a)googlemail.com wrote:

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It is my opinion that we should be careful of people who are using restricted software for contributions because it might be in violation of some licenses.

No, we should not. Whatever licenses they are violating, we are not a party to these licenses and we are not violating them.

Hay (Husky)

1:47 p.m.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Nikola Smolenski <smolensk(a)eunet.yu> wrote:

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jamesmikedupont(a)googlemail.com wrote:

It is my opinion that we should be careful of people who are using restricted software for contributions because it might be in violation of some licenses.

No, we should not. Whatever licenses they are violating, we are not a party to these licenses and we are not violating them.

Indeed. Note that this study is about something completely different, namely reuse of NC-licensed CC works and when something like that is 'commercial' or not. -- Hay

Anthony

2:23 p.m.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:39 AM, Hay (Husky) <huskyr(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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with its 255 pages this might be something that you would rather like to skim through instead of fully read :)

Anything to disrupt my view that the NC licenses suck because it's unclear what they mean?

Andrew Gray

2:52 p.m.

2009/9/15 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>:

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On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:39 AM, Hay (Husky) <huskyr(a)gmail.com> wrote:

with its 255 pages this might be something that you would rather like to skim through instead of fully read :)

Anything to disrupt my view that the NC licenses suck because it's unclear what they mean?

Not a view I disagree with, personally! One interesting example the blog post brings up - a nonprofit-with-ads, paying for hosting costs that way, is that commercial? 60% of creators say it is non-commercial, whilst *70%* of reusers think so - which really does begin to sound like a recipe for unintentionally annoying a lot of people releasing material under the license. I wonder, perhaps, if the best thing the next generation of the -nc- licenses could include would be a long list of worked examples... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Mike Linksvayer

3:14 p.m.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:52 AM, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk> wrote:

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2009/9/15 Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>rg>: > On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 5:39 AM, Hay (Husky) <huskyr(a)gmail.com> wrote: >> with its 255 pages >> this might be something that you would rather like to skim through >> instead of fully read :) > > Anything to disrupt my view that the NC licenses suck because it's unclear > what they mean?

Probably not.

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It's not that bad. What you see is a scale where 1=noncommercial and 100=commercial, and creators rated the case you mention 59.2 on that scale, users 71.7 -- so creators see that case as less commercial than users, which is ideal if fewer disputes are a good outcome (and as far as I know there aren't many). Of course one of the ways disputes are avoided is that users just avoid NC licensed content, as Wikimedia projects do. Kudos. Mike

Anthony

3:54 p.m.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 11:14 AM, Mike Linksvayer <ml(a)creativecommons.org>wrote;wrote:

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On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 7:52 AM, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk> wrote:

One interesting example the blog post brings up - a nonprofit-with-ads, paying for hosting costs that way, is that commercial? 60% of creators say it is non-commercial, whilst *70%* of reusers think so - which really does begin to sound like a recipe for unintentionally annoying a lot of people releasing material under the license.

Fewer disputes are not a good outcome if it means the content isn't used in ways which creators and users both want it to be used. The ideal situation would be one in which creators and users all rank any given situation as either 0 or 100. Of course one of the ways disputes are avoided is that users just

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avoid NC licensed content, as Wikimedia projects do. Kudos.

True, although the Wikimedia projects do so for a different reason than the fact that the term "noncommercial" is undefinable. Wikipedia was set up intentionally with the purpose of allowing commercial use. In fact, it was set up by a for-profit with the intention of making money. CC doesn't want to drop the NC licenses because they're popular. But they're popular because they offer something impossible to obtain. For a little thought experiment, imagine I wanted to create a CC-GOOD license, where use was allowed for anyone doing something good, and wasn't allowed for anyone doing something evil. It'd be an incredibly popular license if I could convince people that it does what it claims to do, but it'd be impossible to construct such a license which actually does that.

Andrew Gray

4:04 p.m.

2009/9/15 Mike Linksvayer <ml(a)creativecommons.org>rg>:

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You are entirely correct, and I seem to have thoroughly misread that section!

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Of course one of the ways disputes are avoided is that users just avoid NC licensed content, as Wikimedia projects do. Kudos.

Yeah. Not the most desired outcome for the creator, though. One of the benefits of CC is to encourage worry-free distribution by helping creators be entirely up-front about what they're happy to have happen with their material, but this sort of ambiguity seems to bring us full circle. -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

Hay (Husky)

4:44 p.m.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 6:04 PM, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk> wrote:

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Just some thoughts. The main problem with NC-licenses is the ambiguity of the term 'non-commercial' when reusing content. This research has shown that the interpretation of 'NC' is pretty much the same with both users and creators, even around the globe. However, that doesn't really resolve the issue of ambiguity, as re-stating the definition in the license itself, or creating more licenses has been shown in this report to be a bad idea. That isn't as big a problem for individual creators though. Reuse of media will probably stay within the 'personal use' or 'redistribute' limits, and the NC license mostly touches upon all cases where people might make money from the content in a commercial way. Modifications to the original media are not very common. This isn't the case however with a project like Wikipedia, where mass collaboration is the _basis_ of the medium and it is really inherent to creating content. Any ambiguity on how 'non-commercial' should be interpreted is likely to much more of a problem than with works created by an individual. That's why it's so important, for projects like ours, to use a license such as BY-SA that it usable by anyone, at anytime, for any purpose without that ambiguity. -- Hay

wiki-lists＠phizz.demon.co.uk

6:19 p.m.

New subject: [Foundation-l] Creative Commons publishes report on defining "Non-commercial"

Hay (Husky) wrote:

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That's why it's so important, for projects like ours, to use a license such as BY-SA that it usable by anyone, at anytime, for any purpose without that ambiguity.

Except that it is not, the SA license ghettoizes the work just as an NC licenses does. The only difference is that they build different walls. You can't combine a CC-BY work with a CC-BY-SA work without either imposing a SA limitation on the CC-BY work, or removing the SA limitation on the CC-BY-SA work. Which is no different to that of someone combining CC-BY-NC-SA license with a CC-BY-SA license.

Gregory Maxwell

6:29 p.m.

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 2:19 PM, <wiki-lists(a)phizz.demon.co.uk> wrote:

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You can't combine a CC-BY work with a CC-BY-SA work without either imposing a SA limitation on the CC-BY work,

Which anyone can do when combining CC-By and CC-By-SA works by others. (If you don't want people adding random limitations to your works; don't use CC-By)

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or removing the SA limitation on the CC-BY-SA work.

Which only the copyright holder(s) of the BY-SA work can do.

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Which is no different to that of someone combining CC-BY-NC-SA license with a CC-BY-SA license.

Not so, see above. I can't combine the NC-SA and SA works of third parties without negotiating alternative license terms; the licenses are mutually incompatible. The limitation of BY-SA keeps the work and it's derivatives freely licensed. True— it's a limitation, but it's one that merely contravenes some of frequently anti-cooperative aspect of copyright protection. You can look at SA works as existing in a parallel copyright universe where restrictive copyright controls do not exist. This is categorically different from the (often vague) nature of use restrictions connected with non-commercial licensing.

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Andrew Gray
Anthony
Gregory Maxwell
Hay (Husky)
jamesmikedupont＠googlemail.com
Mike Linksvayer
Nikola Smolenski
wiki-lists＠phizz.demon.co.uk