[Commons-l] [Foundation-l] Requirements for a strong copyleft license

[Brianna Laugher]

On 03/12/2007, Gavin Baker <gavin at gavinbaker.com> wrote:
> > From: "Brianna Laugher" <brianna.laugher at gmail.com>
> > On 02/12/2007, Gregory Maxwell <gmaxwell at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I do not believe there is any point to having a copyleft license for
> >> media which isn't strong.  Does anyone here disagree?
> >
> > At the risk of being stoned... yeah.
> > I just don't consider an article that uses a photograph of mine as
> > illustration to be a a derivative of my work.
> > I don't want an article, blog or book author to have to license their
> > whole text under CC-BY-SA just because they use my image.
> > HOWEVER, I do want them to be obliged to make explicit the license of
> > my work, that is offer it to others under the same conditions. My
> > work, not theirs. That is how I think "weak copyleft" differs from
> > CC-BY or PD.
>
> Actually, this *is* how CC BY works. The requirements of CC BY include
> both attribution of authorship (including a linkback) and notification
> of the license.

After rereading the CC-BY legal code it does appear you (and others
who made this point) are correct, and I was quite mistaken about the
strength of the CC-BY license.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/legalcode
"You may Distribute or Publicly Perform the Work only under the terms
of this License."

Indeed it seems CC-BY is already the "weak copyleft" I was thinking
CC-BY-SA is... CC-BY is much stronger than I realised. I thought CC-BY
just meant "include a byline with my name".

I am probably not the only one who had this impression, because the
Wikimedia Commons summary as it stands is deeply misleading.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Cc-by-3.0

How embarrassing.

So, is this understanding correct: using CC-BY, a reuser could create
a derivative work that was not freely licensed, but provide info that
the source image was CC-BY (and provide link), and that would be
acceptable? Is that true?

Well... now I think shoring up CC-BY-SA to be a strong copyleft is a
good idea, since Greg is correct...if we can correct the
misperceptions of people like me then I don't see why this idea
wouldn't receive widespread support.

cheers,
Brianna

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