This is a discussion from cc-licenses, the Creative Commons mailing list, that might be of interest to some. See the thread here: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2007-February/004960.html I've also asked Larry Lessig for his thoughts on the matter. I think that if we cannot achieve this with CC-BY-SA, it may be necessary to create a stronger copyleft license that does. But the answer isn't clear yet, and it might be helpful if some Wikimedians weigh in on the discussion. Mailing list subscription info: http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Feb 9, 2007 4:44 AM Subject: Fwd: Share-Alike with images To: lessig(a)pobox.com Hello Larry, I have received no clear response to this on the cc-licenses mailing list. It would be helpful to discuss this a bit. If CC doesn't want to explicitly make copyleft apply to, e.g., the combination of an article and an image, it might be useful to create a separate, stronger copyleft license for this purpose. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Feb 5, 2007 3:01 AM Subject: Share-Alike with images To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses(a)lists.ibiblio.org> The Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike license currently states: "For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical composition or sound recording, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation with a moving image ('synching') will be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this License." This is cool and helps to clarify copyleft in the context of music. What about the case where a photo is used in a newspaper or encyclopedia article? Like a musical piece in a movie, there is a clear semantic relationship between the two; one is directly enriched in its meaning by the other. I think the license is currently ambiguous about such uses. However, I think it would be clearly in line with the copyleft philosophy to demand free licensing of the combined whole in such a case (not in the case of mere aggregation within e.g. a collection of photos where there's no semantic relationship between them). In my discussions with photographers, I've found that many use NC licenses because they worry about commercial exploitation of their works. If we could clarify copyleft in the context of images, many of these fears could be alleviated. The simple fact is that a photo by itself is not likely to be modified much, especially if it's of very high quality to begin with. That's why I think it's important that we establish a clear and unambiguous reciprocity when images are used in larger works. Perhaps the movie-specific phrase in the current SA license text could be generalized: "For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is semantically combined with another (a film with time-synchronized music, an article with pictures, and so on), the combined Work will be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this license." I don't think the "Collective Work" portion would need to be modified, as it already speaks of "separate and independent" works, which would be clarified by a phrase like the above. -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees. -- Peace & Love, Erik DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.