[Commons-l] {{Cc-by-nc-sa-2.0-dual}} and other similar licenses

[Andrew Gray]

On 04/08/07, Nilfanion <nilfanion at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Why exactly is this template on the Commons? Obviously, it is an attempt to
> make commercial use as difficult as possible. Arguably it does that, and the
> image ultimately is freely licensed so there is no issue with it being on
> the Commons.
>
> However, this style of template is contrary to the goal of free content. Any
> non-commercial user who uses an image to make a derivative is almost
> certainly going to pick the non-commercial CC license instead of the GFDL
> (as its easier to use); it will be rare that they will care about the free
> content mission enough to choose the "nasty" GFDL. This means that any
> derivatives will not be free content and furthermore due to the SA term any
> further derivatives will be locked in a non-commercial state.
>
> If people have qualms about the commercial use of their image, then they
> should not be uploading it as "free" content. I think any images tagged with
> this template should be moved to GFDL-only licensing, Commons should not
> allow ever non-free licensing even as part of a dual license

Something I've seen on enwp, and I suspect it's probably around
quietly on Commons as well - people licensing their images and then
adding (pre-emptively) a note saying "by the way, if you want to use
it for X or Y, go ahead with no strings attached, don't feel the need
to ask me permission".

That's a clearly nonfree license - should we prevent people doing this
as well? If not, where do we draw a line?

There are also the edge cases of "licenses that may not be completely
free" - witness the CC 3.0 debate, and there will no doub be similar
undetermined cases in the future. It seems vaguely sensible to allow
people to dual-license with these whilst we figure out the details...

I do feel it's helpful to our reusers - Commons serving to provide
free content to the wider community as well as WMF - to list all the
possible criteria under which an image can be used, to give them
flexibility. Perhaps what we need to consider here is *emphasising*
the free license[s] - the one we use it under - and having a clearly
secondary "other reuse licenses" line?

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk