Stronger Attribution-Share Alike For Photos & Illustrations

Stronger Attribution-Share Alike For Photos & Illustrations

I have tried having this discussion on the Creative Commons mailing lists before but feel I have never even gotten to the point of being properly understood.

At the urging of Mike Linksvayer in a discussion on Identica, I am trying again.

@zotz … http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC_Attribution-ShareAlike_Intent (3) says scope of copyleft will only increase…

@zotz … so make sure you campaign incessantly for increase in copyleft scope in 4.0 discussion. :-)

The Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license works well to preserve the Freedoms of people with respect to many types of copyrighted works.

It does not work nearly as well for photos and illustrations however. To show the problem we will take two similar situations and see how they differ.

1. A BY-SA licensed recorded song that someone wants to use in a film or video.

2. A BY-SA licensed photo that someone wants to use as an illustration in a book or article.

There seems to be wide agreement that in order to use the song in a video, the video will have to be put under the BY-SA license as well. There is even special language in the license to make this clear.

There also seems to be wide agreement that the same would not hold in the case of the photo in the book.

I would like it to hold in the second case as well as the first.

Up until now, every time I bring up this desire, people indicate that it is impossible as the licenses reciprocal provision kick in on the making of a derivative and in the first case, the law stipulates that a derivative is made while in the second case, no derivative is make according to the law.

That reasoning is fine and makes sense if one thinks that the making of a derivative is the only tools we can use to activate the reciprocal provisions of the license. I think there may be another possibility.

I propose an additional trigger in the license. It would work like this.

You have a right to copy and / or distribute the work alone. If you want to copy and distribute the work along with other copyrighted works, we contemplate two possibilities.

1. The group of works will be distributed together in such a way that no extra copyright comes into existence. In this case you have permission to copy and / or distribute the work.

2. The group of works will be distributed together in such a way that the group or collection or "container" gets a copyright of its own. In this case you do not have permission to copy and / or distribute the work unless the "container" is also put under a BY-SA license and all of the other works in the "container" are also under "Free" licenses.

So, we are not constrained to requiring a BY-SA license in the case of a derivative. By using the restrictions in copyright law on copying and distribution, we can require it in non-derivative situations.

That is the bones of the thoughts at least. I am looking for input along several lines.

1. Is this possible from a legal point of view?

2. Is there a better way to do this?

3. Should this be done?

4. Benefits of doing this?

5. Problems with / dangers of doing this?

6. Am I missing anything?

One Reason To Choose A Strong Copyleft License Over A Public Domain Dedication / Release

StrongCopyleftVsPD

One Reason To Choose A Strong Copyleft License Over A Public Domain Dedication / Release

*Note: in my view, a license is not copyleft if it is not Free.

In today's copyright environment, a strong Copyright license is a beautiful thing. (I encourage you to consider putting one on your works.)

It is not a perfect thing however and there are some problems and issues that go along with it.

Doing your best to put your work in the "Public Domain" (See: The Corruption of Our 'Public Domain' · Thursday August 05, 2010 by Crosbie Fitch http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=252 for thoughts on this) will overcome some of these problems but I think choosing a strong copyleft license instead is a better option. Why?

If a work is in the "Public Domain" (Not copyrighted, copyright has expired, or copyrights purposely given up / donated to 'the public' in some way) anyone can use if for any purpose. This includes making a derivative of it and obtaining a copyright on the derivative and making money on that derivative while declaring "All Rights Reserved". This includes those whom some refer to as "copyright maximalists" just to be clear.

If everyone who was opposed to copyright maximalism were to release their works under a strong copyleft license, we would build up a pool of works that would advantage those willing to play a #Free game over those who refused to do so.

Now, nothing would prevent a copyright maximalist from enjoying the benefits of a work under a strong copyleft or even profiting from it. However, if they choose to do so it might make it harder for them to claim that it is impossible to make a profit from a work with a Free license. It might make it harder for them to claim that we need even stronger protections and harsher punishments for people to be willing to create and to profit from their creations.

My gut tells me that we are unlikely to see copyright maximalists making derivatives of works with strong copyleft licenses in the near term. This is why I think such a pool would give advantages to those willing to play a #Free game in a way that a similar pool of public domain works will not give.

Such a pool could be a game changer. If you would like the game changed, consider adding your works to such a pool.

"Free Cultural Works" defined: http://freedomdefined.org/Definition

"Free Software" defined: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html