On Thursday, Oct 30, 2003, at 15:17 US/Pacific, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
There is not single "Creative Commons" license. The project allows you to pick the attributes you want, and then gives you a license that covers them. In the case of the PLoF, they have only chosen to require attribution. A summary of their license is here: http://www.plos.org/journals/license . It allows modifications for any purpose, and since they have not opted for a copyleft clause, derivative works can be released under any license, including the GFDL.
Jimmy raised the question of paragraph 4(a) of the CC-Attributions license, which is the one PLoF uses: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode
=========================== 4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly made subject to and limited by the following restrictions:
a. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work only under the terms of this License, and You must include a copy of, or the Uniform Resource Identifier for, this License with every copy or phonorecord of the Work You distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform. You may not offer or impose any terms on the Work that alter or restrict the terms of this License or the recipients' exercise of the rights granted hereunder. You may not sublicense the Work. You must keep intact all notices that refer to this License and to the disclaimer of warranties. You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological measures that control access or use of the Work in a manner inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement. The above applies to the Work as incorporated in a Collective Work, but this does not require the Collective Work apart from the Work itself to be made subject to the terms of this License. If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Derivative Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested. ===========================
It appears on its face to a non-lawyer like myself to not be compatible with relicensing under the GFDL -- a more restrictive license -- at all. Can anyone clarify this?
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
I gather you are focusing on the restriction, "You may not sublicense the Work." You could argue that since you continue to state that the work falls under the Creative Commons license and provide the link to the license, that you have not in fact relicensed the work despite the more general GFDL notice. That specific language overrides general language is a generally accepted rule of contruction.
Fred