Clarifications on the non commercial aspect of CC

[Luther Goh Lu Feng]

Hi all,

I have a specific use case to clarify for CC. Say a particular piece of art, eg. a greeting card template is licensed under CC non commercial. Is it consider a violation if

- I make mention of this greeting card template in the packaging of another non CC greeting card, a paid product, and provide a url link to download for free
- I print out this greeting card template, and include it in the packaging of another non CC greeting card, but mention explicitly that the CC non commercial template is free, and it can be freely downloaded.

Thanks!


Best regards,

Luther

[Chinmay Pendharkar]

Hi Luther,

From my understanding of CC.

#1 "mention of this greeting card template in the packaging of another non CC greeting card" should be totally fine.

#2. This is a little grey. I would lean on the side of this being against the license, because you are in a way using the CC work 'to sell' your other product. I would suggest you ask the creator of the original card for permissions to do that. That would make it legal.

-Chinmay

[Luther Goh Lu Feng]

With reference to #2, if the card creator gives consent, does that make it legal? Also, can the creator of the card override the license for personal benefit by selling it him/herself?

[Chinmay Pendharkar]

Yes. Based on my understanding, creator of the original work still has the right to give a specific person a license outside the CC construct. In other words, although the work is published as CC, the original creator has full rights to the work.

Yes. The creator of the original work has the ability to sell the card if he/she wishes to. That of course does depend on the if that work was original or itself a derivative of another work.

This is similar to anyone's ability to sell GPL licensed software as a compiled binary (although they have give out the source freely)

-Chinmay

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[Harish Pillay]

> Yes. Based on my understanding, creator of the original work still has the
> right to give a specific person a license outside the CC construct. In other
> words, although the work is published as CC, the original creator has full
> rights to the work.
>
> Yes. The creator of the original work has the ability to sell the card if
> he/she wishes to. That of course does depend on the if that work was
> original or itself a derivative of another work.
>
> This is similar to anyone's ability to sell GPL licensed software as a
> compiled binary (although they have give out the source freely)

Indeed. Anything one creates can be made available in any number of licenses
concurrently. A real life example is that of MySQL. It was available as GPL
and proprietary because the authors to the code were MySQL and there is
nothing stopping them making their work available in multiple licenses. The
trick, in the case of the MySQL instance is that if you downloaded the GPL
code and did moficiations and want to see that available upstream you had
to *assign* your copyright to MySQL for them to accept the code - as they
were upstream. By assigning the copyright to MySQL, MySQL could then
trivially make the whole code base available in any number of licesnese
without the hassle of having to seek permission from all contributors.

Likewise for CC.

Harish

[Ivan Chew]

Hi Luther,

I believe your questions have been addressed. I'll just add my 2-cents:

>>>

- I make mention of this greeting card template in the packaging of another non CC greeting card, a paid product, and provide a url link to download for free

>>>

I can't see how this can be a violation of a CC-BY-NC license. Pointing people to where they can get the content isn't the same as using the content. A general comment though: what I'll be mindful is to make sure there's no misrepresentation in anyway, or give the BY-NC creator cause to say there's ambiguity in how I've listed the URL. 

>>>

I print out this greeting card template, and include it in the packaging of another non CC greeting card, but mention explicitly that the CC non commercial template is free, and it can be freely downloaded. 

>>>

I presume you are offering the "non CC greeting card" in the commercial sense. Then the answer seems a clear 'No' to me, according to the CC FAQ:

"Q: If I create a collection that includes a work offered under a CC license, which license(s) may I choose for the collection?

A: ...When you include CC-licensed content in a collection, you still must adhere to the license conditions governing your use of the material incorporated. For example, material under any of the Creative Commons NonCommercial licenses cannot be used commercially..."

Source: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#If_I_create_a_collection_that_includes_a_work_offered_under_a_CC_license.2C_which_license.28s.29_may_I_choose_for_the_collection.3F

The table clearly excludes CC-BY-NC materials in "commercial collections". 

>>>>

With reference to #2, if the card creator gives consent, does that make it legal? 

>>>>

Most certainly, because explicit consent has been given. Another general comment: the consideration might be more of what you actually tell the creator when you ask for permission. There shouldn't be room for doubt as to how his/ her work would be used wrt commercial use (i.e. are you going to sell the card, what's the larger picture). The FAQ section "Alterations and additions to the license" for licensors addresses your question.

>>>

Also, can the creator of the card override the license for personal benefit by selling it him/herself?

>>>

I concur with Chinmay and Harish. Also, the FAQ section on "Business Models" has additional info on that.

Ivan

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