[Commons-l] Need Advice on Image Permissions

[David Gerard]

On 20/08/07, Benjamin Esham <bdesham at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have a question about the Creative Commons ShareAlike licenses.  (I
> thought I had become fairly knowledgeable about copyright since becoming
> involved in Wikipedia, but maybe not ;-))  Does the ShareAlike requirement
> apply for *every* reuse of the image, or just for the creation of derivative
> works?  I had always been under the impression that, for example, a website
> using a CC-SA image would have to be CC-SA itself.  Is it the case that the
> sharing alike would apply only to the image?


Gooood question ...

The licenses are precisely as viral as copyright is. What constitutes
a "derivative work" is a matter for the lawyers and courts. If the
text is clearly derived from the picture, that'd have to be. If it
clearly isn't, it probably wouldn't be.

The question here would be what if you are sued by an insane and/or
querulously possessive copyright owner and are waving the licence
around as your defence. Would you lose? Would you win? Would you win
and they get a drubbing from the judge for being stupid?


> Of course, the definition of what exactly constitutes a "derivative work" is
> another issue entirely, but it seems I may have been mistaken about one of
> the fundamental principles of the CC licenses.  Can someone clear this up
> for me?  (I'd be more than happy to add such a clarification to
> [[Commons:Reuse]].)


Um, hmm. I asked the FSF and they said "look, really, we can't advise
generally, read the licence text." Which is not helpful, but is
arguably the absolutely correct answer.

The GPLv2 has been sufficiently tested in court. I don't know of any
cases involving the GFDL or any CC licenses. Anyone?


- d.