Creative Commons - User contributions [en]

NC ND discussion

2013-01-16T20:43:14Z

ArneBab: /* Revive the “license spectrum” graphic */

= Background =
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33874
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/35773

== Proposed action items ==

=== Why not something more radical? ===
There has been calls from some individuals and organizations that Creative Commons should stop offering non-free licenses altogether. In practical terms this would mean that Creative Commons would not version the non-free licenses (again, BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND) licenses to 4.0. There are both pros and cons to this option.

Pros:
* It would increase interoperability with other pools of content and with other CC-licensed works; essentially, it increases the ease of remixing by reducing number of incompatible licenses.
* It makes the clearest statement in support of a commons aligned with the Definition of Free Cultural Works and the Open Definition.
* It would unify the free culture movement to be able to focus on more important issues.
* It would simplify the task of educating rightsholders about why a free license is the right choice.
* It would solve criticisms/confusion about the definition of "NonCommercial" (although these criticisms would still be present for pre-4.0 versions).
* Works already licensed under the non-free licenses will still be available under those licenses in pre-4.0 versions; e.g. dropping the non-free licenses from 4.0 would have no effect on already-shared works.

Cons:
* It's the most drastic option and would upset communities of non-free license users or cause potential adopters to reconsider using CC licenses altogether. (It risks alienating many major CC adopters, like OCW projects, who use non-free licenses such as BY-NC-SA.)
** It would hinder a community of users whose business model depends on NonCommercial from upgrading to 4.0, including musicians, photographers, and others that use NonCommercial licenses so that they can still collect royalties from collecting societies.
*** CC rejects potential users that want more restrictions. CC doesn't have an "all rights reserved" option, either.
** It cuts off a potential entry path for people new to open licensing, at least those who want to use 4.0 NonCommercial licenses. But, would this group use 3.0 non-free licenses, or simply not use CC at all?
*** CC's mission is to maximize creative freedom, which means pushing everyone towards a free license. The non-free licenses seem to actually reinforce the idea that proprietary licenses are good, and do not give users a reason to switch to free ones. They are more of a hindrance than an entry point.
**** It does not help free licensed art to keep people from starting off with a choice which seems safe to them. Remember that even Josh Woodward, who nowadays offers his albums under cc by started out with cc by-nc-sa. That was his first safe step. When he found that his work wasn’t abused, but the NC hindered people from reusing his work (=free advertising), he left out the NC. But being able to start with NC was an important first step: That brought him into the commons. Obviously he then realized that he wanted more commons.
* It opens the door to a new license steward for non-free licenses, if they can provide a solution as good as or better than CC 3.0 licenses.
** The door is not open. CC is too well established. It is also irrelevant. It would be beneficial for non-free licenses to be done under an org that does not claim to aim to maximize sharing and creativity.
* It creates perception problems, such that 4 of its licenses (the non-free) should not be used (after 10 years of support), or that CC licenses are not suitable for mainstream adoption.
** Better late than never. CC should not compromise its mission for having licenses that appeal to the "mainstream" if the mainstream mindset is the problem. CC should work to undo that.

Rationale:

Not versioning the non-free CC licenses to 4.0 is seen as less desirable, for the following reasons:

* There is a potential that we would end porting of the licenses in 4.0 (this would mean that there is only 1 set of international licenses, with no licenses ported to individual jurisdictions). However, if we are set on this because we want to create a more internationally applicable license, then not versioning the non-free licenses and suggesting that the community should just use the version 3.0 licenses seems contradictory and we’d lose the benefits of having licensors upgrade to 4.0.
* Many CC affiliates around the world have told us that not offering the non-free (or at least the NonCommercial) licenses would be detrimental to their outreach to potential adopters in their jurisdiction.

==== Improve information about which CC licenses align with definitions of "Free licenses" ====
* Current situation is that we link to http://freedomdefined.org/Definition from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge. You'll see this badge on the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ BY] and [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ BY-SA] license deeds, as well as the [http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC0] deed. The freedomdefined.org web page is not as clear as it could be, and that there are other definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA, CC0) align, notably the Open Definition (http://opendefinition.org/). We also already mark the deeds and license text page headers in different colors: green for Free licenses, yellow for non-free licenses (BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND).
** Action item: Develop a web page on http://creativecommons.org/ that describes the definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA licenses, CC0) are aligned; this page will be linked from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge on the deeds and license chooser.

==== Revive the “license spectrum” graphic ====
* Current situation is that the current CC web assets could do a better job at explaining the licenses along a spectrum of "openness"; we used to have a simple graphic on creativecommons.org, but it is no longer present.
** Action item: Develop a license spectrum graphic for display on the CC site, probably on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ where the 6 CC licenses and Public Domain tools are placed along a spectrum of “more open” to “less open”; indicate high profile users of each license along the spectrum. One good recent example is the [http://foter.com/blog/files/2012/11/Foter.com_infographic_CC.jpg spectrum infographic] from Foter.com. It could be repurposed for our needs.
** Problem: Openness is not a spectrum. Permissive vs copyleft has practical differences, but proprietary licenses (NC and ND) are not free or open and should not be represented as such.
*** There are two axis: Permissive vs. Assured and Proprietary vs. Free. cc by-sa is Assured Free. cc-sa-nc and cc-nd-* are Assured Proprietary. cc by is Permissive Free. (I’m not happy with the word assured, but neither with permissive: Assured: Make sure that all content which profits from your work is free, too. Permissive: Allow bootstrapping unfree works on your free works).

==== Provide descriptive examples of adoptions of Free and non-free licenses ====
* Current situation is that messaging on the Creative Commons website and communication from CC in general does not provide useful examples of which licenses are used in various contexts and domains. A current tension is that on the one hand Creative Commons promotes individual choice so that licensors can adopt the CC license that they feel is most appropriate to their needs. On the other hand, there is a call for CC to more proactively guide the decision-making process (by providing useful information and assistance) and encourage more open licensing (Free licenses) in certain situations, such as for publicly funded scientific research and educational materials.

* Action item: Develop copy for the CC website so that it is reiterated that CC provides a spectrum of license choices (and connect this with the license spectrum graphic that will be developed). CC should better describe how some licenses facilitate specific activities and actions, and describe how licenses constrain certain actions. All this will be done with the goal of providing better education and guidance to help licensors make the best decision to fit their needs.

==== Gather feedback about changing the name of "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved" ====
* Current situation: the way the "NonCommercial" license operates is often misunderstood by licensors and reusers, in part because its name is unclear. One proposal made is to change the name of the license from "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved", to better reflect the function of the license. There is a draft wiki page expanding on the arguments at [[Commercial Rights Reserved]].
* Action item: Gather feedback from the community and within CC on the desirability and impact of a potential name change, so CC may reach a decision before the launch of the 4.0 license suite.
* There is danger that there will be massive objection from the existing users of the non-free licenses, who may simply stop using CC licenses altogether.
* CC would be seen as a poor license steward, as not versioning the non-free license would acknowledge that there is something wrong with the non-free licenses, which we’ve been supporting since the beginning of CC.

NC ND discussion

2013-01-16T20:41:54Z

ArneBab: /* Revive the “license spectrum” graphic */

= Background =
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33874
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/35773

== Proposed action items ==

=== Why not something more radical? ===
There has been calls from some individuals and organizations that Creative Commons should stop offering non-free licenses altogether. In practical terms this would mean that Creative Commons would not version the non-free licenses (again, BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND) licenses to 4.0. There are both pros and cons to this option.

Pros:
* It would increase interoperability with other pools of content and with other CC-licensed works; essentially, it increases the ease of remixing by reducing number of incompatible licenses.
* It makes the clearest statement in support of a commons aligned with the Definition of Free Cultural Works and the Open Definition.
* It would unify the free culture movement to be able to focus on more important issues.
* It would simplify the task of educating rightsholders about why a free license is the right choice.
* It would solve criticisms/confusion about the definition of "NonCommercial" (although these criticisms would still be present for pre-4.0 versions).
* Works already licensed under the non-free licenses will still be available under those licenses in pre-4.0 versions; e.g. dropping the non-free licenses from 4.0 would have no effect on already-shared works.

Cons:
* It's the most drastic option and would upset communities of non-free license users or cause potential adopters to reconsider using CC licenses altogether. (It risks alienating many major CC adopters, like OCW projects, who use non-free licenses such as BY-NC-SA.)
** It would hinder a community of users whose business model depends on NonCommercial from upgrading to 4.0, including musicians, photographers, and others that use NonCommercial licenses so that they can still collect royalties from collecting societies.
*** CC rejects potential users that want more restrictions. CC doesn't have an "all rights reserved" option, either.
** It cuts off a potential entry path for people new to open licensing, at least those who want to use 4.0 NonCommercial licenses. But, would this group use 3.0 non-free licenses, or simply not use CC at all?
*** CC's mission is to maximize creative freedom, which means pushing everyone towards a free license. The non-free licenses seem to actually reinforce the idea that proprietary licenses are good, and do not give users a reason to switch to free ones. They are more of a hindrance than an entry point.
**** It does not help free licensed art to keep people from starting off with a choice which seems safe to them. Remember that even Josh Woodward, who nowadays offers his albums under cc by started out with cc by-nc-sa. That was his first safe step. When he found that his work wasn’t abused, but the NC hindered people from reusing his work (=free advertising), he left out the NC. But being able to start with NC was an important first step: That brought him into the commons. Obviously he then realized that he wanted more commons.
* It opens the door to a new license steward for non-free licenses, if they can provide a solution as good as or better than CC 3.0 licenses.
** The door is not open. CC is too well established. It is also irrelevant. It would be beneficial for non-free licenses to be done under an org that does not claim to aim to maximize sharing and creativity.
* It creates perception problems, such that 4 of its licenses (the non-free) should not be used (after 10 years of support), or that CC licenses are not suitable for mainstream adoption.
** Better late than never. CC should not compromise its mission for having licenses that appeal to the "mainstream" if the mainstream mindset is the problem. CC should work to undo that.

Rationale:

Not versioning the non-free CC licenses to 4.0 is seen as less desirable, for the following reasons:

* There is a potential that we would end porting of the licenses in 4.0 (this would mean that there is only 1 set of international licenses, with no licenses ported to individual jurisdictions). However, if we are set on this because we want to create a more internationally applicable license, then not versioning the non-free licenses and suggesting that the community should just use the version 3.0 licenses seems contradictory and we’d lose the benefits of having licensors upgrade to 4.0.
* Many CC affiliates around the world have told us that not offering the non-free (or at least the NonCommercial) licenses would be detrimental to their outreach to potential adopters in their jurisdiction.

==== Improve information about which CC licenses align with definitions of "Free licenses" ====
* Current situation is that we link to http://freedomdefined.org/Definition from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge. You'll see this badge on the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ BY] and [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ BY-SA] license deeds, as well as the [http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC0] deed. The freedomdefined.org web page is not as clear as it could be, and that there are other definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA, CC0) align, notably the Open Definition (http://opendefinition.org/). We also already mark the deeds and license text page headers in different colors: green for Free licenses, yellow for non-free licenses (BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND).
** Action item: Develop a web page on http://creativecommons.org/ that describes the definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA licenses, CC0) are aligned; this page will be linked from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge on the deeds and license chooser.

==== Revive the “license spectrum” graphic ====
* Current situation is that the current CC web assets could do a better job at explaining the licenses along a spectrum of "openness"; we used to have a simple graphic on creativecommons.org, but it is no longer present.
** Action item: Develop a license spectrum graphic for display on the CC site, probably on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ where the 6 CC licenses and Public Domain tools are placed along a spectrum of “more open” to “less open”; indicate high profile users of each license along the spectrum. One good recent example is the [http://foter.com/blog/files/2012/11/Foter.com_infographic_CC.jpg spectrum infographic] from Foter.com. It could be repurposed for our needs.
** Problem: Openness is not a spectrum. Permissive vs copyleft has practical differences, but proprietary licenses (NC and ND) are not free or open and should not be represented as such.
*** There are two axis: Permissive vs. Assured and Proprietary vs. Free. cc by-sa is Assured Free. cc-sa-nc and cc-sa-nd are Assured Proprietary. cc by is Permissive Free. (I’m not happy with the word assured, but neither with permissive: Assured: Make sure that all content which profits from your work is free, too. Permissive: Allow bootstrapping unfree works on your free works).

==== Provide descriptive examples of adoptions of Free and non-free licenses ====
* Current situation is that messaging on the Creative Commons website and communication from CC in general does not provide useful examples of which licenses are used in various contexts and domains. A current tension is that on the one hand Creative Commons promotes individual choice so that licensors can adopt the CC license that they feel is most appropriate to their needs. On the other hand, there is a call for CC to more proactively guide the decision-making process (by providing useful information and assistance) and encourage more open licensing (Free licenses) in certain situations, such as for publicly funded scientific research and educational materials.

* Action item: Develop copy for the CC website so that it is reiterated that CC provides a spectrum of license choices (and connect this with the license spectrum graphic that will be developed). CC should better describe how some licenses facilitate specific activities and actions, and describe how licenses constrain certain actions. All this will be done with the goal of providing better education and guidance to help licensors make the best decision to fit their needs.

==== Gather feedback about changing the name of "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved" ====
* Current situation: the way the "NonCommercial" license operates is often misunderstood by licensors and reusers, in part because its name is unclear. One proposal made is to change the name of the license from "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved", to better reflect the function of the license. There is a draft wiki page expanding on the arguments at [[Commercial Rights Reserved]].
* Action item: Gather feedback from the community and within CC on the desirability and impact of a potential name change, so CC may reach a decision before the launch of the 4.0 license suite.
* There is danger that there will be massive objection from the existing users of the non-free licenses, who may simply stop using CC licenses altogether.
* CC would be seen as a poor license steward, as not versioning the non-free license would acknowledge that there is something wrong with the non-free licenses, which we’ve been supporting since the beginning of CC.

NC ND discussion

2013-01-16T20:37:45Z

ArneBab: /* Why not something more radical? */

= Background =
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33874
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/35773

== Proposed action items ==

=== Why not something more radical? ===
There has been calls from some individuals and organizations that Creative Commons should stop offering non-free licenses altogether. In practical terms this would mean that Creative Commons would not version the non-free licenses (again, BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND) licenses to 4.0. There are both pros and cons to this option.

Pros:
* It would increase interoperability with other pools of content and with other CC-licensed works; essentially, it increases the ease of remixing by reducing number of incompatible licenses.
* It makes the clearest statement in support of a commons aligned with the Definition of Free Cultural Works and the Open Definition.
* It would unify the free culture movement to be able to focus on more important issues.
* It would simplify the task of educating rightsholders about why a free license is the right choice.
* It would solve criticisms/confusion about the definition of "NonCommercial" (although these criticisms would still be present for pre-4.0 versions).
* Works already licensed under the non-free licenses will still be available under those licenses in pre-4.0 versions; e.g. dropping the non-free licenses from 4.0 would have no effect on already-shared works.

Cons:
* It's the most drastic option and would upset communities of non-free license users or cause potential adopters to reconsider using CC licenses altogether. (It risks alienating many major CC adopters, like OCW projects, who use non-free licenses such as BY-NC-SA.)
** It would hinder a community of users whose business model depends on NonCommercial from upgrading to 4.0, including musicians, photographers, and others that use NonCommercial licenses so that they can still collect royalties from collecting societies.
*** CC rejects potential users that want more restrictions. CC doesn't have an "all rights reserved" option, either.
** It cuts off a potential entry path for people new to open licensing, at least those who want to use 4.0 NonCommercial licenses. But, would this group use 3.0 non-free licenses, or simply not use CC at all?
*** CC's mission is to maximize creative freedom, which means pushing everyone towards a free license. The non-free licenses seem to actually reinforce the idea that proprietary licenses are good, and do not give users a reason to switch to free ones. They are more of a hindrance than an entry point.
**** It does not help free licensed art to keep people from starting off with a choice which seems safe to them. Remember that even Josh Woodward, who nowadays offers his albums under cc by started out with cc by-nc-sa. That was his first safe step. When he found that his work wasn’t abused, but the NC hindered people from reusing his work (=free advertising), he left out the NC. But being able to start with NC was an important first step: That brought him into the commons. Obviously he then realized that he wanted more commons.
* It opens the door to a new license steward for non-free licenses, if they can provide a solution as good as or better than CC 3.0 licenses.
** The door is not open. CC is too well established. It is also irrelevant. It would be beneficial for non-free licenses to be done under an org that does not claim to aim to maximize sharing and creativity.
* It creates perception problems, such that 4 of its licenses (the non-free) should not be used (after 10 years of support), or that CC licenses are not suitable for mainstream adoption.
** Better late than never. CC should not compromise its mission for having licenses that appeal to the "mainstream" if the mainstream mindset is the problem. CC should work to undo that.

Rationale:

Not versioning the non-free CC licenses to 4.0 is seen as less desirable, for the following reasons:

* There is a potential that we would end porting of the licenses in 4.0 (this would mean that there is only 1 set of international licenses, with no licenses ported to individual jurisdictions). However, if we are set on this because we want to create a more internationally applicable license, then not versioning the non-free licenses and suggesting that the community should just use the version 3.0 licenses seems contradictory and we’d lose the benefits of having licensors upgrade to 4.0.
* Many CC affiliates around the world have told us that not offering the non-free (or at least the NonCommercial) licenses would be detrimental to their outreach to potential adopters in their jurisdiction.

==== Improve information about which CC licenses align with definitions of "Free licenses" ====
* Current situation is that we link to http://freedomdefined.org/Definition from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge. You'll see this badge on the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ BY] and [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ BY-SA] license deeds, as well as the [http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC0] deed. The freedomdefined.org web page is not as clear as it could be, and that there are other definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA, CC0) align, notably the Open Definition (http://opendefinition.org/). We also already mark the deeds and license text page headers in different colors: green for Free licenses, yellow for non-free licenses (BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND).
** Action item: Develop a web page on http://creativecommons.org/ that describes the definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA licenses, CC0) are aligned; this page will be linked from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge on the deeds and license chooser.

==== Revive the “license spectrum” graphic ====
* Current situation is that the current CC web assets could do a better job at explaining the licenses along a spectrum of "openness"; we used to have a simple graphic on creativecommons.org, but it is no longer present.
** Action item: Develop a license spectrum graphic for display on the CC site, probably on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ where the 6 CC licenses and Public Domain tools are placed along a spectrum of “more open” to “less open”; indicate high profile users of each license along the spectrum. One good recent example is the [http://foter.com/blog/files/2012/11/Foter.com_infographic_CC.jpg spectrum infographic] from Foter.com. It could be repurposed for our needs.
** Problem: Openness is not a spectrum. Permissive vs copyleft has practical differences, but proprietary licenses (NC and ND) are not free or open and should not be represented as such.

==== Provide descriptive examples of adoptions of Free and non-free licenses ====
* Current situation is that messaging on the Creative Commons website and communication from CC in general does not provide useful examples of which licenses are used in various contexts and domains. A current tension is that on the one hand Creative Commons promotes individual choice so that licensors can adopt the CC license that they feel is most appropriate to their needs. On the other hand, there is a call for CC to more proactively guide the decision-making process (by providing useful information and assistance) and encourage more open licensing (Free licenses) in certain situations, such as for publicly funded scientific research and educational materials.

* Action item: Develop copy for the CC website so that it is reiterated that CC provides a spectrum of license choices (and connect this with the license spectrum graphic that will be developed). CC should better describe how some licenses facilitate specific activities and actions, and describe how licenses constrain certain actions. All this will be done with the goal of providing better education and guidance to help licensors make the best decision to fit their needs.

==== Gather feedback about changing the name of "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved" ====
* Current situation: the way the "NonCommercial" license operates is often misunderstood by licensors and reusers, in part because its name is unclear. One proposal made is to change the name of the license from "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved", to better reflect the function of the license. There is a draft wiki page expanding on the arguments at [[Commercial Rights Reserved]].
* Action item: Gather feedback from the community and within CC on the desirability and impact of a potential name change, so CC may reach a decision before the launch of the 4.0 license suite.
* There is danger that there will be massive objection from the existing users of the non-free licenses, who may simply stop using CC licenses altogether.
* CC would be seen as a poor license steward, as not versioning the non-free license would acknowledge that there is something wrong with the non-free licenses, which we’ve been supporting since the beginning of CC.

NC ND discussion

2013-01-16T20:36:54Z

ArneBab: /* Why not something more radical? */

= Background =
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33874
* http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/35773

== Proposed action items ==

=== Why not something more radical? ===
There has been calls from some individuals and organizations that Creative Commons should stop offering non-free licenses altogether. In practical terms this would mean that Creative Commons would not version the non-free licenses (again, BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND) licenses to 4.0. There are both pros and cons to this option.

Pros:
* It would increase interoperability with other pools of content and with other CC-licensed works; essentially, it increases the ease of remixing by reducing number of incompatible licenses.
* It makes the clearest statement in support of a commons aligned with the Definition of Free Cultural Works and the Open Definition.
* It would unify the free culture movement to be able to focus on more important issues.
* It would simplify the task of educating rightsholders about why a free license is the right choice.
* It would solve criticisms/confusion about the definition of "NonCommercial" (although these criticisms would still be present for pre-4.0 versions).
* Works already licensed under the non-free licenses will still be available under those licenses in pre-4.0 versions; e.g. dropping the non-free licenses from 4.0 would have no effect on already-shared works.

Cons:
* It's the most drastic option and would upset communities of non-free license users or cause potential adopters to reconsider using CC licenses altogether. (It risks alienating many major CC adopters, like OCW projects, who use non-free licenses such as BY-NC-SA.)
** It would hinder a community of users whose business model depends on NonCommercial from upgrading to 4.0, including musicians, photographers, and others that use NonCommercial licenses so that they can still collect royalties from collecting societies.
*** CC rejects potential users that want more restrictions. CC doesn't have an "all rights reserved" option, either.
** It cuts off a potential entry path for people new to open licensing, at least those who want to use 4.0 NonCommercial licenses. But, would this group use 3.0 non-free licenses, or simply not use CC at all?
*** CC's mission is to maximize creative freedom, which means pushing everyone towards a free license. The non-free licenses seem to actually reinforce the idea that proprietary licenses are good, and do not give users a reason to switch to free ones. They are more of a hindrance than an entry point.
**** It does not help free licensed art to keep people from starting off with a choice which seems safe to them. Remember that even Josh Woodward, who nowadays offers his albums under cc by started out with cc by-nc-sa. That was his first safe step. When he found that his work wasn’t abused, but the NC hindered people from reusing his work (=free advertising), he left out the NC. But being able to start wit NC was an important first step: That brought him into the commons. Obviously he then realized that he wanted more commons.
* It opens the door to a new license steward for non-free licenses, if they can provide a solution as good as or better than CC 3.0 licenses.
** The door is not open. CC is too well established. It is also irrelevant. It would be beneficial for non-free licenses to be done under an org that does not claim to aim to maximize sharing and creativity.
* It creates perception problems, such that 4 of its licenses (the non-free) should not be used (after 10 years of support), or that CC licenses are not suitable for mainstream adoption.
** Better late than never. CC should not compromise its mission for having licenses that appeal to the "mainstream" if the mainstream mindset is the problem. CC should work to undo that.

Rationale:

Not versioning the non-free CC licenses to 4.0 is seen as less desirable, for the following reasons:

* There is a potential that we would end porting of the licenses in 4.0 (this would mean that there is only 1 set of international licenses, with no licenses ported to individual jurisdictions). However, if we are set on this because we want to create a more internationally applicable license, then not versioning the non-free licenses and suggesting that the community should just use the version 3.0 licenses seems contradictory and we’d lose the benefits of having licensors upgrade to 4.0.
* Many CC affiliates around the world have told us that not offering the non-free (or at least the NonCommercial) licenses would be detrimental to their outreach to potential adopters in their jurisdiction.

==== Improve information about which CC licenses align with definitions of "Free licenses" ====
* Current situation is that we link to http://freedomdefined.org/Definition from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge. You'll see this badge on the [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ BY] and [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ BY-SA] license deeds, as well as the [http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ CC0] deed. The freedomdefined.org web page is not as clear as it could be, and that there are other definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA, CC0) align, notably the Open Definition (http://opendefinition.org/). We also already mark the deeds and license text page headers in different colors: green for Free licenses, yellow for non-free licenses (BY-NC, BY-ND, BY-NC-SA, BY-NC-ND).
** Action item: Develop a web page on http://creativecommons.org/ that describes the definitions to which the Free licenses (BY, BY-SA licenses, CC0) are aligned; this page will be linked from the "Approved for Free Cultural Works" badge on the deeds and license chooser.

==== Revive the “license spectrum” graphic ====
* Current situation is that the current CC web assets could do a better job at explaining the licenses along a spectrum of "openness"; we used to have a simple graphic on creativecommons.org, but it is no longer present.
** Action item: Develop a license spectrum graphic for display on the CC site, probably on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ where the 6 CC licenses and Public Domain tools are placed along a spectrum of “more open” to “less open”; indicate high profile users of each license along the spectrum. One good recent example is the [http://foter.com/blog/files/2012/11/Foter.com_infographic_CC.jpg spectrum infographic] from Foter.com. It could be repurposed for our needs.
** Problem: Openness is not a spectrum. Permissive vs copyleft has practical differences, but proprietary licenses (NC and ND) are not free or open and should not be represented as such.

==== Provide descriptive examples of adoptions of Free and non-free licenses ====
* Current situation is that messaging on the Creative Commons website and communication from CC in general does not provide useful examples of which licenses are used in various contexts and domains. A current tension is that on the one hand Creative Commons promotes individual choice so that licensors can adopt the CC license that they feel is most appropriate to their needs. On the other hand, there is a call for CC to more proactively guide the decision-making process (by providing useful information and assistance) and encourage more open licensing (Free licenses) in certain situations, such as for publicly funded scientific research and educational materials.

* Action item: Develop copy for the CC website so that it is reiterated that CC provides a spectrum of license choices (and connect this with the license spectrum graphic that will be developed). CC should better describe how some licenses facilitate specific activities and actions, and describe how licenses constrain certain actions. All this will be done with the goal of providing better education and guidance to help licensors make the best decision to fit their needs.

==== Gather feedback about changing the name of "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved" ====
* Current situation: the way the "NonCommercial" license operates is often misunderstood by licensors and reusers, in part because its name is unclear. One proposal made is to change the name of the license from "NonCommercial" to "Commercial Rights Reserved", to better reflect the function of the license. There is a draft wiki page expanding on the arguments at [[Commercial Rights Reserved]].
* Action item: Gather feedback from the community and within CC on the desirability and impact of a potential name change, so CC may reach a decision before the launch of the 4.0 license suite.
* There is danger that there will be massive objection from the existing users of the non-free licenses, who may simply stop using CC licenses altogether.
* CC would be seen as a poor license steward, as not versioning the non-free license would acknowledge that there is something wrong with the non-free licenses, which we’ve been supporting since the beginning of CC.

GPL compatibility use cases

2012-03-28T05:24:00Z

ArneBab: /* 4. Not restricting the design of programs with legal details: added examples. */

If any form of GPL-compatibility is to be pursued in [[4.0]] -- see [[4.0/ShareAlike]] -- use cases that would benefit from such need to be explicated.

As raw material, copied below is an email to cc-licenses concerning game-related use cases. Please be bold -- edit and give structure -- add relevant links, etc.

* Message to cc-licenses about game use cases http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006441.html

== Raw material ==

GPL-licenced games (game code) with CC-BY-SA game content are a bit of a
problem right now. A "functional" CC-BY-SA game content might be
incompatible with GPL. Bellow is my [lousy] attempt at division of game
content into functional and non-functional:

Non-functional game content:
Meshes, textures, sounds, animations, ... used only to visually/...
represent objects in a virtual world don't really have a function (at least
most of the time). They could be replaced with [nearly] no effect on
gameplay.

BUT even those types of content can be used in a functional way.
E.g. in a game with "positive" and "negative" targets, those target types
could be represented in a clearly different way (colour, sound, ...) so
game mechanics would require player to perform visual pattern matching
which could be done from a long distance and then player would select
positive targets.

Let's change visual appearance of "positive" and "negative" targets to make
them look identically and let's modify sounds so that they are very very
quiet. These changes of game content will significantly change game
mechanics as player will have to navigate between targets at a close range
in order to determine which are "positive" and which are "negative" and if
there would be some danger for a player due to proximity then game
mechanics would differ even more from "original" game mechanics.
Let's have identical targets and then use 2 animated textures (2 frames,
"positive" texture: green frame, then red frame; "negative" texture: red
frame, then green frame) and run those animations at a rate of say 1 frame
per 5 seconds (sorry for complexity of this example). Then the player will
have to keep track of colour changes and count in head when there are no
targets around as a reference.

Through some changes of seemingly non-interactive/non-functional elements
game mechanics can be changed significantly. With a "weak" code-driven game
mechanics, content-driven game mechanics could be more
important/"functional".

Functional game content:

Virtual world (a map/level/...) has some function as it, along with game
mechanics, defines what the gameplay will be like. If a map would be
replaced with another map the gameplay would be different. Player choices
are dependent upon a combination/interaction_of game mechanics and virtual
world.

In physics-driven games function could be even more prominent. Objects
could be placed and connected in a virtual world in a way that new
mechanics could emerge. Here a different object mesh (a dedicated physical
meshes of or physical mesh same as a visual mesh) would alter this emergent
mechanics. And of course even if objects would be fixed in place, the
player moving in the world could be getting a very different experience. A
different mesh could turn an object into a trap or could be a bridge to
some location.

Objects like switches linked to gates, elevators, ... would also have a
pretty clear functional role forcing a player to perform sequences of
action much like a gameplay mechanics.

And in some games textures, sounds, animations, ... could also be used to
drive gameplay. For example a texture/image could be used as a terrain
height map and another texture/image could be used to determine (e.g. by
colour) where there is water, where there is deadly lava, ...

Those are just some quick (and a bit ugly) examples of functionality of
game content and they are in no way exhaustive. A lot better examples could
surely be constructed. Sorry for turning this post into a mess of random
ideas. My point is that it is better (for game developers) to have an
ability to create and enhance a content under CC-BY-SA 4.0 so that it could
be used with other CC-BY-SA 4.0 media on the net (film, music, fanart, ...)
and at the same time have an ability to "export" content to GPL making it
100% compatible with game engine/code. And there are some games which are
already using GPL-licenced content which means that they can't mix it with
CC-BY-SA content.

Another problem is if game content is mixed with game scripts (a code used
to control game mechanics at a high level) if scripts use functions
provided by game engine/code ("standard library" functions). If there is no
exception added to GPL and developers can't get all contributors to agree
on licencing under GPL with an exception then scripts licenced under
CC-BY-SA can't be used (this problem would probably impact only those
people who are less technical / less interested in licencing issues and
have simple chosen CC-BY-SA because they use it for content as well and are
not aware about consequences (a problems will be biggest when there will
later be many contributors and then it could be hard to make them all
licence under another licence)).

And of course version number could be a problem. New versions of CC-BY-SA
and GPL are not being released at the same time (at least right now). A lot
of software relies on GPL version 3 "or later" and if a content under
CC-BY-SA 4.0 would be "exported" to GPL version 3 (without "or later"),
then if there would be GPL v4 released then developers would be restricted
by what CC-BY-SA 4.0 allows (could not switch to latest GPL). Even if newer
CC-BY-SA version would add support of GPLv4 then if developers would
"export" CC-BY-SA 4.0 to GPLv3 (without "or later") and would be modifying
content, they would need an approval of all contributors in order to be
able to licence under GPLv4 (which could be problematic). And if they would
be improving content under CC-BY-SA instead, they would have to hope that
there will be a new version of CC-BY-SA released which will be compatible
in order to be able to use latest version of GPL. If I understand correctly
an "or later" clause is not part of a GPL licence text (unlike CC-BY-SA?
(at 4.b.)) but is rather written in a README file while a regular GPL text
is in LICENCE file. Would it be legal to make CC-BY-SA 4.0 to be one-way
"interoperable" with GPL version 3 "or later" instead of just GPL version 3?

There is also something not related to stuff above but still related to
games and interactive multimedia. If I understand correctly if a work is
licenced under CC-BY-SA and is presented somewhere (in a open show) then a
person/... who is presenting a work (author or not) does not have release
that work (unlike GPL-licenced work (if publicly available)) but any person
can still record a work (e.g. using a camera) and it will be legal and
can't be restricted by DRM?

If so then this only really help works which are non-interactive / which
are "linear" (a single "frame" (image) or a non-interactive "stream" (film,
sounds, music)) BUT it does not really help much if work is
interactive/"non-linear" (games, interactive multimedia) because during a
game/... only portion of content could be recorded and in a "hard to
reverse" way (a recording of a game can't be released as game content. game
content must be rebuild and only a portion of it will be recorder during a
course of game). This could be a problem when someone releases a work under
CC-BY-SA, then someone transforms it and puts it on a system to which there
is no direct access so that game content based upon some Else's content
cannot be extracted (in a directly usable form).

Recently there have been a "gaming console" developed where "user
interaction" is sent to server(s) and a recording of a games (in a form of
a film) is streamed back to player and is displayed so it is technically
impossible to get content out in a directly-usable form.

It is a problem at least to me personally. If someone would release
modification in that way I would have to play to be able to use a service
(which would be fine), then record a portion of a game presented to me and
then convert it back in order to be able to create some new game content
based on it while that other person could simply add some more content and
it would be restricted again.

I don't think that such system (where game is streamed as a film) could be
considered to be a DRM (or "effective technological measures" as it is
written in CC-BY-SA) because it is how a device is supposed to work so I
personally think CC-BY-SA does not offer enough "protection" for
"non-linear content" creators.

To some extent a AGPL version 3 (Affero GPL version 3) licence offers some
protection in such situation (for code) as it requires that an
AGPL-licenced code running on a remote machine / on a server side must be
disclosed while GPL version 3 code does not have to be and AGPLv3 is
compatible with GPLv3.

I'm not exactly sure what clauses in CC-BY-SA (and other licences?) could
be used for this (and I'm quite sure that some/many people will not want
it) but current state of CC-BY-SA (or my misunderstanding of it) is pretty
much the reason why I am considering releasing (in future) my game content
under a custom licence.

If some measures regarding this matter would be implemented in CC-BY-SA
(and other CC licences) and if there would still be a plan to have
CC-BY-SA-4.0 "exportable" to GPL then it would only makes sense if to have
it "exportable" to AGPL (version 3 or later) rather than GPL because GPL
would be "removing" requirement of disclosure (when everything would be
happening remotely).

Even if I would have my game engine/code licenced under AGPLv3+ someone
could still re-implement it or use another engine and use my CC-BY-SA in a
way I have described above and currently only a custom licence (or AGPLv3+)
would be a good solution for me.

== More raw material ==

Posted in cc-licenses: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006523.html

For me personally it is a huge problem that cc by-sa and GPL cannot be
used together in a combined work. That’s why I gathered some use-cases
for that.

=== 1. Using already existing cultural works under GPL with content under cc by-sa (my personal use-case) ===

There already is quite a lot of GPL and cc by-sa content which cannot
be used together for purely legal reasons.

There is Battle for Wesnoth¹ with GPL licensed text and artwork, and
Ryzoom² with cc by-sa assets.

And (my case) there is my own free roleplaying game³ under GPL which
utilizes Wesnoth graphics but cannot use those from Ryzoom, even
though the Ryzoom folks freed their graphics with the intent of
allowing others to use them.

¹: http://wesnoth.org

²: http://media.ryzom.com/

³: http://1w6.org

=== 2. Using Python scripts in blender ===

This already came up, but I want to add some legal stuff.

In GPLv3, something is considered a derivative work, if there is
“intimate data communication”. In Python importing a GPL module always
makes your code a derivative work, so you have to use the GPL,
too. When you use a python script in blender and you adapt it to the
specifics of your model - for example the nature of your rig - the
model and the code have intimate data communication, so it is very
likely that you have to licence your model under a GPL compatible
license.¹

Thought to the end, this could mean, that currently you are not allowed
to use cc by-sa with rigged blender models, when you use any kind of
non-generic scripting.

¹: Blender Python-scripts seem to be GPL without exception, so plugins
have to be GPL, too. It would be nice if someone versed in legalities
could check that:

https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender/source/blender/python/

=== 3. Using content from free software in artworks ===

Currently you cannot make cc by-sa licensed artwork which uses GPL
works - and be it only a snippet of code.

If cc by-sa allowed usage with GPL code, then the resulting work would
have to be GPL, but the new assets could be licensed under cc by-sa.

=== 4. Not restricting the design of programs with legal details ===

Many people argue, that you can just separate artwork from the code.

This means, however, that the licensing restricts the structure of the
program. For example blender would have to disallow scripts embedded
in .blend files, if the model is not under a GPL-compatible
license. And embedded scripts are too convenient to lose them due to
legal details.

Another example for this problem becomes visible in the simplest of games: The text adventures in scripting languages. An example is the [https://bitbucket.org/ArneBab/textrpg/src/463a94237518/branching_story.py branching story in the TextRPG]. Since the code imports GPL libraries, it has to be licensed under GPL. If the text were under cc by-sa, then it would have to be put into a separate file and the code would have to get a full templating system, which makes it impossible to just use the capabilities of the scripting language and the program state in the text (otherwise it would have intimate data communication again). Even [http://www.lisperati.com/casting-spels-emacs/html/casting-spels-emacs-1.html casting spels in lisp] would break the law, if it used cc by-sa licensed text and GPL licensed code. Just exchanging the text for cc by-sa text would not be possible. And if someone wanted to refactor it into a full library, it would still be restricted to only one community: either cc by-sa or GPL - or GFDL for that matter.

(no time to write more - I hope these help as illustration)

Best wishes,
Arne

PS: Even though the Free Software Foundation deems art as
non-functional, I strongly disagree. Art is just as functional as
code, it just works through pathways which are harder to assess. Great
gameplay can crumble when you take away the music, and when the
gameplay is built around a narrative, it often needs the narrative to
realize its effect on the player. As a vicious example: What would
Mortal Combat be without someone shouting “Finish him”?

Art is functional. It just not necessarily runs on a computer, but on
our minds.

4.0/ShareAlike

2012-03-28T05:10:54Z

ArneBab: /* Considerations regarding compatibility of other licenses */

{{4.0 Issue}}

There are roughly three issues that have been discussed for years that could potentially be addressed. Ideally, addressing one or more of these could increase clarity of relevant CC licenses, and increase range of and differentiation within CC license suite.

==ShareAlike scope==

Effectively, this has been treated as identical to potentially tweaking the definition of adaptations vs collections.
* Version 2.0 added "For the avoidance of doubt, where the Work is a musical composition or sound recording, the synchronization of the Work in timed-relation with a moving image ("synching") will be considered a Derivative Work for the purpose of this License." (Please discuss this particular clarifying language on the [http://wiki.creativecommons.org/4.0/license_subject_matter#Automatic_localization_of_the_license License subject matter page].)
* Many have wanted something similar added clarifying when use of an image creates an adaptation/derivative. This was visited especially during discussions with the Wikimedia community, leading to no immediate change, but an assurance that the scope of BY-SA's copyleft would only be increased, if changed at all in the 3rd point of [[CC Attribution-ShareAlike Intent]]

Relatedly, it has also been pointed out that CC license definitions of work/adaptation/collection are somewhat hard to read.

For further discussion, visit the [[4.0/Games_3d_printing_and_functional_content#Increasing.2Fclarifying_scope_of_what.27s_a_derivative|Games, 3D printing, and functional content page]].

=== Proposals relating to SA scope in 4.0 ===
''For ease of reference on discussion lists, please do not alter proposal numbers.''

'''''SA Proposal No. 1:''''' '''Make no changes.'''
* Pros:
* Cons: Does not allow the creation to evolve. It is not made clear how to incorporate SA materials into otherwise licensed works.
* Other comments: There is already a 'no derivatives' option. The concept of derivation could be made more clear with examples such as "remix, translate, integrate, aggregate, etc."

'''''SA Proposal No. 2:''''' '''Make work/adaptation/collection definitions easier to read, but strive to not make any effective change.'''
* Pros: Will clarify terminology.
* Cons: New observations based on experience with current CC licenses may bot be taken into account.
* Other comments: Explain that the Share Alike clause discourages exploitave commercial uses while still allowing commerce in the commons and OER landscape.

'''''SA Proposal No. 3:''''' '''Expand scope of adaptation (thus SA) specifically for some class of use of images, analogous to synching added in 2.0.'''
* Pros:
* Cons:
* Other comments: Also allow certain exceptions such as mixing CC-by-SA with GPL or similarly spirited licenses.

'''''SA Proposal No. 4:''''' '''A more aggressive expansion of SA, including some collections, except those that are mere aggregations (see GPL).'''
* Pros:
* Cons:
* Other comments:
* [http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2012-January/006644.html Attempt to restate my ideas for a stronger copyleft for BY-SA 4.0+ in alternate language by drew Roberts]
** Same basic idea in "Copyright Arising" language from 2007 [http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-community/2007-April/001702.html Does BY-SA extend to a newspaper?] The above language may be stronger as it could preclude the use of patents or yet to be created legal powers to restrict freedom.

'''''SA Proposal No. 5:''''' '''Share the wealth clause, requesting that commercial gain (e.g. profits) be shared back to the original creator(s).'''
* Pros: gives financial incentive to release assets under Free Culture Certified licenses. Reduces concern about commercial (ab)uses of creative works.
* Cons:
** May be hard to figure out proportional income distribution. Perhaps a general guideline could ease this process.
** Introduces some of the issues raised by [http://wiki.creativecommons.org/4.0/NonCommercial the NC term] - namely, confusion over what is commercial use ('profits' are mentioned in this proposal) and could be a disincentive to share and remix works where otherwise allowed. NC is often adopted out of a (perhaps largely misguided because SA addresses it) concern for commercial exploitation. If 'share the wealth' becomes a new trend ('Yeah, of course I want to choose the option to receive money from others who use my work!') it may heavily reduce the cultural value of any works under that license.
* Other comments:
** Create a table of fair share profit distribution (perhaps percentage based) to guide the reciprocative process.
** Difficult to determine how to share profits. May need a public directory of CC licensors and their payment details. Perhaps link this in with profile pages on the CC site, creating an incentive to register your works here. (However, my understanding is that this costs the user a (albeit minimal) yearly fee, reducing access to this service.)
** My take is that if this is put in it should always be voluntary on the part of the licensee. Let the licensor give suggested details.(For instance I might suggest that someone kick back to me when they are making more per hour from my works than they make per hour at their regular job or when they make more per hour from my works then I make per hour on average.)

''Please add other SA proposals here, and number them sequentially.''

==Source-requiring SA==

(Note that scope and whether source required are independent of each other.)

Some would like a copyleft for creative works that requires not just sharing adaptations under the same license, but making preferred form for modification available, as the GPL does for software. FDL includes a weaker requirement of providing copies in "transparent" formats. Especially the former may be too far for BY-SA to go (but costs/benefits could be listed to see). Could possibly be addressed via compatibility, see next.

==Compatibility with other copyleft licenses==

Directly related to the interoperability goal of 4.0. The following licenses have been discussed at various points, regarding compatibility with BY-SA:
* [http://artlibre.org/licence/lal/en Free Art License]
* [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html Free Documentation License]
* [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GPL] (unique among these, could only be one-way with BY-SA as donor; would address desire for source-requiring license, long-term trend toward more mixing of "code" and "content" in ways beyond former accessing latter) MPL2 contains a [https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#MPL-2.0 mechanism for compatibility with GPL, with limitations], that may be a useful model.
* [http://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/ Open Database LIcense] (ODbL)

Some things to consider in 4.0 process:
* What could be done to bring BY-SA into better alignment technically with these other licenses where they are in the same spirit?
* Should explicit compatibility with any of these be aimed for? In theory this could be a post-4.0 discussion assuming compatible licenses hook remains, but in practice, if compatibility is to be possible, 4.0 changes should be considered in that light
* Discuss with stewards of each of above licenses, with regard to BY-SA 4.0, future versions of their licenses, alignment, and explicit compatibility statements
* Similar to above, discuss with other stewards possibility of agreeing on/promoting common license text

===Considerations regarding compatibility of other licenses===

* Consider addressing uncertainty regarding releasing a work (adaptation/ derivative) under a CC Compatible license
**When I thought about CC-BY-SA 3.0 --> GFDL transition as a hypothetical case, it was not necessarily all clear how I would "follow" GFDL after creating a derivative of a CC-BY-SA'd work.
**To address the uncertainty, consider developing a "exemplary practice guideline" that would serve as a "safe harber" - i.e. the range of practice that is considered to be "in compliance" with both licenses for the transition purposes. Practice outside of the guideline may be okay, or maybe not. Insert some language to make this safe harbor effective in 4.0. After some licenses become compatible, develop such guidelines with steward of the compatible license.

*''GPL Compatibility.'' CC BY does not make any specific requirements on the exact license an adaptation may be released under, but it ought be possible for downstream licensee of adaptation to fulfill CC BY conditions when fulfilling conditions of license adaptation offered under, ie conditions of license adaption under should be a superset of CC BY conditions. CC BY may be slightly misaligned with GPL such that latter's conditions not a strict superset of former. FSF says CC BY is not GPL compatible -- https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#ccby
**Items to look at for potential incompatibilities and potential rectification:
*** [[4.0/Technical protection measures]]
*** [[4.0/Attribution and marking]]
**GPL compatibility is discussed in detail on this [[4.0/Games_3d_printing_and_functional_content#GPL_compatibility|page]] with some additional arguments in [[GPL_compatibility_use_cases|compatibility use cases]].

''Please add other important considerations to this discussion here.''

=== Proposals relating to compatibility in 4.0 ===
''For ease of reference on discussion lists, please do not alter proposal numbers.''

'''''Compatibility Proposal No. 1:''''' '''Clarify definition of Creative Commons Compatible License.''' (Currently, "Creative Commons Compatible License" means a license that is listed at http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses that has been approved by Creative Commons as being essentially equivalent to this License, including, at a minimum, because that license: (i) contains terms that have the same purpose, meaning and effect as the License Elements of this License; and, (ii) explicitly permits the relicensing of adaptations of works made available under that license under this License or a Creative Commons jurisdiction license with the same License Elements as this License."
* Pros:
* Cons: Current language is ambiguous. Does it mean (a) the compatible license must give options for a licensee to pick any of those CC licenses? Or does it mean that (b) the compatible license must give at least one of those CC licenses as an option?
* Other comments: Better wording (though I am not a native speaker) suggestions, for (a) and (b) above, respectively, are:
***(ii) explicitly permits the relicensing of adaptations of works made available under that license under any of the Creative Commons licenses with the same License Elements as this License, including this License.
***(ii) explicitly permits the relicensing of adaptations of works made available under that license under at least one of the Creative Commons licenses with the same License Elements as this License, such as this License, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 3.0 Australia license, or Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 2.0 Japan license.

== Related debate ==
''We encourage you to sign up for the license discussion mailing list, where we will be debating this and other 4.0 proposals. HQ will provide links to related email threads from the license discussion mailing list here.''

* [http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/thread.html#6474 Discussion about compatibility between CC and the Free Art License, started by Antoine Pitrou on 12/23/11]

== Relevant references ==
''Please add citations that ought inform this 4.0 issue below.''

* [http://wikieducator.org/Libre_Puro_License Libre Puro License] (draft)
** [http://wikieducator.org/Libre_License#Preamble_for_the_Libre_Puro_License Preamble]
** [http://wikieducator.org/Libre_License_Draft_Creative_Commons_Deed License deed]
* [http://wikieducator.org/Declaration_on_libre_knowledge Declaration on libre knowledge]
* [http://wikieducator.org/Say_Libre Say Libre]
* [http://wikieducator.org/Libre_knowledge Libre knowledge]

GPL compatibility use cases

2012-03-13T22:22:25Z

ArneBab: /* More raw material */

If any form of GPL-compatibility is to be pursued in [[4.0]] -- see [[4.0/ShareAlike]] -- use cases that would benefit from such need to be explicated.

As raw material, copied below is an email to cc-licenses concerning game-related use cases. Please be bold -- edit and give structure -- add relevant links, etc.

* Message to cc-licenses about game use cases http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006441.html

== Raw material ==

GPL-licenced games (game code) with CC-BY-SA game content are a bit of a
problem right now. A "functional" CC-BY-SA game content might be
incompatible with GPL. Bellow is my [lousy] attempt at division of game
content into functional and non-functional:

Non-functional game content:
Meshes, textures, sounds, animations, ... used only to visually/...
represent objects in a virtual world don't really have a function (at least
most of the time). They could be replaced with [nearly] no effect on
gameplay.

BUT even those types of content can be used in a functional way.
E.g. in a game with "positive" and "negative" targets, those target types
could be represented in a clearly different way (colour, sound, ...) so
game mechanics would require player to perform visual pattern matching
which could be done from a long distance and then player would select
positive targets.

Let's change visual appearance of "positive" and "negative" targets to make
them look identically and let's modify sounds so that they are very very
quiet. These changes of game content will significantly change game
mechanics as player will have to navigate between targets at a close range
in order to determine which are "positive" and which are "negative" and if
there would be some danger for a player due to proximity then game
mechanics would differ even more from "original" game mechanics.
Let's have identical targets and then use 2 animated textures (2 frames,
"positive" texture: green frame, then red frame; "negative" texture: red
frame, then green frame) and run those animations at a rate of say 1 frame
per 5 seconds (sorry for complexity of this example). Then the player will
have to keep track of colour changes and count in head when there are no
targets around as a reference.

Through some changes of seemingly non-interactive/non-functional elements
game mechanics can be changed significantly. With a "weak" code-driven game
mechanics, content-driven game mechanics could be more
important/"functional".

Functional game content:

Virtual world (a map/level/...) has some function as it, along with game
mechanics, defines what the gameplay will be like. If a map would be
replaced with another map the gameplay would be different. Player choices
are dependent upon a combination/interaction_of game mechanics and virtual
world.

In physics-driven games function could be even more prominent. Objects
could be placed and connected in a virtual world in a way that new
mechanics could emerge. Here a different object mesh (a dedicated physical
meshes of or physical mesh same as a visual mesh) would alter this emergent
mechanics. And of course even if objects would be fixed in place, the
player moving in the world could be getting a very different experience. A
different mesh could turn an object into a trap or could be a bridge to
some location.

Objects like switches linked to gates, elevators, ... would also have a
pretty clear functional role forcing a player to perform sequences of
action much like a gameplay mechanics.

And in some games textures, sounds, animations, ... could also be used to
drive gameplay. For example a texture/image could be used as a terrain
height map and another texture/image could be used to determine (e.g. by
colour) where there is water, where there is deadly lava, ...

Those are just some quick (and a bit ugly) examples of functionality of
game content and they are in no way exhaustive. A lot better examples could
surely be constructed. Sorry for turning this post into a mess of random
ideas. My point is that it is better (for game developers) to have an
ability to create and enhance a content under CC-BY-SA 4.0 so that it could
be used with other CC-BY-SA 4.0 media on the net (film, music, fanart, ...)
and at the same time have an ability to "export" content to GPL making it
100% compatible with game engine/code. And there are some games which are
already using GPL-licenced content which means that they can't mix it with
CC-BY-SA content.

Another problem is if game content is mixed with game scripts (a code used
to control game mechanics at a high level) if scripts use functions
provided by game engine/code ("standard library" functions). If there is no
exception added to GPL and developers can't get all contributors to agree
on licencing under GPL with an exception then scripts licenced under
CC-BY-SA can't be used (this problem would probably impact only those
people who are less technical / less interested in licencing issues and
have simple chosen CC-BY-SA because they use it for content as well and are
not aware about consequences (a problems will be biggest when there will
later be many contributors and then it could be hard to make them all
licence under another licence)).

And of course version number could be a problem. New versions of CC-BY-SA
and GPL are not being released at the same time (at least right now). A lot
of software relies on GPL version 3 "or later" and if a content under
CC-BY-SA 4.0 would be "exported" to GPL version 3 (without "or later"),
then if there would be GPL v4 released then developers would be restricted
by what CC-BY-SA 4.0 allows (could not switch to latest GPL). Even if newer
CC-BY-SA version would add support of GPLv4 then if developers would
"export" CC-BY-SA 4.0 to GPLv3 (without "or later") and would be modifying
content, they would need an approval of all contributors in order to be
able to licence under GPLv4 (which could be problematic). And if they would
be improving content under CC-BY-SA instead, they would have to hope that
there will be a new version of CC-BY-SA released which will be compatible
in order to be able to use latest version of GPL. If I understand correctly
an "or later" clause is not part of a GPL licence text (unlike CC-BY-SA?
(at 4.b.)) but is rather written in a README file while a regular GPL text
is in LICENCE file. Would it be legal to make CC-BY-SA 4.0 to be one-way
"interoperable" with GPL version 3 "or later" instead of just GPL version 3?

There is also something not related to stuff above but still related to
games and interactive multimedia. If I understand correctly if a work is
licenced under CC-BY-SA and is presented somewhere (in a open show) then a
person/... who is presenting a work (author or not) does not have release
that work (unlike GPL-licenced work (if publicly available)) but any person
can still record a work (e.g. using a camera) and it will be legal and
can't be restricted by DRM?

If so then this only really help works which are non-interactive / which
are "linear" (a single "frame" (image) or a non-interactive "stream" (film,
sounds, music)) BUT it does not really help much if work is
interactive/"non-linear" (games, interactive multimedia) because during a
game/... only portion of content could be recorded and in a "hard to
reverse" way (a recording of a game can't be released as game content. game
content must be rebuild and only a portion of it will be recorder during a
course of game). This could be a problem when someone releases a work under
CC-BY-SA, then someone transforms it and puts it on a system to which there
is no direct access so that game content based upon some Else's content
cannot be extracted (in a directly usable form).

Recently there have been a "gaming console" developed where "user
interaction" is sent to server(s) and a recording of a games (in a form of
a film) is streamed back to player and is displayed so it is technically
impossible to get content out in a directly-usable form.

It is a problem at least to me personally. If someone would release
modification in that way I would have to play to be able to use a service
(which would be fine), then record a portion of a game presented to me and
then convert it back in order to be able to create some new game content
based on it while that other person could simply add some more content and
it would be restricted again.

I don't think that such system (where game is streamed as a film) could be
considered to be a DRM (or "effective technological measures" as it is
written in CC-BY-SA) because it is how a device is supposed to work so I
personally think CC-BY-SA does not offer enough "protection" for
"non-linear content" creators.

To some extent a AGPL version 3 (Affero GPL version 3) licence offers some
protection in such situation (for code) as it requires that an
AGPL-licenced code running on a remote machine / on a server side must be
disclosed while GPL version 3 code does not have to be and AGPLv3 is
compatible with GPLv3.

I'm not exactly sure what clauses in CC-BY-SA (and other licences?) could
be used for this (and I'm quite sure that some/many people will not want
it) but current state of CC-BY-SA (or my misunderstanding of it) is pretty
much the reason why I am considering releasing (in future) my game content
under a custom licence.

If some measures regarding this matter would be implemented in CC-BY-SA
(and other CC licences) and if there would still be a plan to have
CC-BY-SA-4.0 "exportable" to GPL then it would only makes sense if to have
it "exportable" to AGPL (version 3 or later) rather than GPL because GPL
would be "removing" requirement of disclosure (when everything would be
happening remotely).

Even if I would have my game engine/code licenced under AGPLv3+ someone
could still re-implement it or use another engine and use my CC-BY-SA in a
way I have described above and currently only a custom licence (or AGPLv3+)
would be a good solution for me.

== More raw material ==

Posted in cc-licenses: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006523.html

For me personally it is a huge problem that cc by-sa and GPL cannot be
used together in a combined work. That’s why I gathered some use-cases
for that.

=== 1. Using already existing cultural works under GPL with content under cc by-sa (my personal use-case) ===

There already is quite a lot of GPL and cc by-sa content which cannot
be used together for purely legal reasons.

There is Battle for Wesnoth¹ with GPL licensed text and artwork, and
Ryzoom² with cc by-sa assets.

And (my case) there is my own free roleplaying game³ under GPL which
utilizes Wesnoth graphics but cannot use those from Ryzoom, even
though the Ryzoom folks freed their graphics with the intent of
allowing others to use them.

¹: http://wesnoth.org

²: http://media.ryzom.com/

³: http://1w6.org

=== 2. Using Python scripts in blender ===

This already came up, but I want to add some legal stuff.

In GPLv3, something is considered a derivative work, if there is
“intimate data communication”. In Python importing a GPL module always
makes your code a derivative work, so you have to use the GPL,
too. When you use a python script in blender and you adapt it to the
specifics of your model - for example the nature of your rig - the
model and the code have intimate data communication, so it is very
likely that you have to licence your model under a GPL compatible
license.¹

Thought to the end, this could mean, that currently you are not allowed
to use cc by-sa with rigged blender models, when you use any kind of
non-generic scripting.

¹: Blender Python-scripts seem to be GPL without exception, so plugins
have to be GPL, too. It would be nice if someone versed in legalities
could check that:

https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender/source/blender/python/

=== 3. Using content from free software in artworks ===

Currently you cannot make cc by-sa licensed artwork which uses GPL
works - and be it only a snippet of code.

If cc by-sa allowed usage with GPL code, then the resulting work would
have to be GPL, but the new assets could be licensed under cc by-sa.

=== 4. Not restricting the design of programs with legal details ===

Many people argue, that you can just separate artwork from the code.

This means, however, that the licensing restricts the structure of the
program. For example blender would have to disallow scripts embedded
in .blend files, if the model is not under a GPL-compatible
license. And embedded scripts are too convenient to lose them due to
legal details.

(no time to write more - I hope these help as illustration)

Best wishes,
Arne

PS: Even though the Free Software Foundation deems art as
non-functional, I strongly disagree. Art is just as functional as
code, it just works through pathways which are harder to assess. Great
gameplay can crumble when you take away the music, and when the
gameplay is built around a narrative, it often needs the narrative to
realize its effect on the player. As a vicious example: What would
Mortal Combat be without someone shouting “Finish him”?

Art is functional. It just not necessarily runs on a computer, but on
our minds.

GPL compatibility use cases

2012-03-13T22:21:17Z

ArneBab: /* More Raw material */

If any form of GPL-compatibility is to be pursued in [[4.0]] -- see [[4.0/ShareAlike]] -- use cases that would benefit from such need to be explicated.

As raw material, copied below is an email to cc-licenses concerning game-related use cases. Please be bold -- edit and give structure -- add relevant links, etc.

* Message to cc-licenses about game use cases http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006441.html

== Raw material ==

GPL-licenced games (game code) with CC-BY-SA game content are a bit of a
problem right now. A "functional" CC-BY-SA game content might be
incompatible with GPL. Bellow is my [lousy] attempt at division of game
content into functional and non-functional:

Non-functional game content:
Meshes, textures, sounds, animations, ... used only to visually/...
represent objects in a virtual world don't really have a function (at least
most of the time). They could be replaced with [nearly] no effect on
gameplay.

BUT even those types of content can be used in a functional way.
E.g. in a game with "positive" and "negative" targets, those target types
could be represented in a clearly different way (colour, sound, ...) so
game mechanics would require player to perform visual pattern matching
which could be done from a long distance and then player would select
positive targets.

Let's change visual appearance of "positive" and "negative" targets to make
them look identically and let's modify sounds so that they are very very
quiet. These changes of game content will significantly change game
mechanics as player will have to navigate between targets at a close range
in order to determine which are "positive" and which are "negative" and if
there would be some danger for a player due to proximity then game
mechanics would differ even more from "original" game mechanics.
Let's have identical targets and then use 2 animated textures (2 frames,
"positive" texture: green frame, then red frame; "negative" texture: red
frame, then green frame) and run those animations at a rate of say 1 frame
per 5 seconds (sorry for complexity of this example). Then the player will
have to keep track of colour changes and count in head when there are no
targets around as a reference.

Through some changes of seemingly non-interactive/non-functional elements
game mechanics can be changed significantly. With a "weak" code-driven game
mechanics, content-driven game mechanics could be more
important/"functional".

Functional game content:

Virtual world (a map/level/...) has some function as it, along with game
mechanics, defines what the gameplay will be like. If a map would be
replaced with another map the gameplay would be different. Player choices
are dependent upon a combination/interaction_of game mechanics and virtual
world.

In physics-driven games function could be even more prominent. Objects
could be placed and connected in a virtual world in a way that new
mechanics could emerge. Here a different object mesh (a dedicated physical
meshes of or physical mesh same as a visual mesh) would alter this emergent
mechanics. And of course even if objects would be fixed in place, the
player moving in the world could be getting a very different experience. A
different mesh could turn an object into a trap or could be a bridge to
some location.

Objects like switches linked to gates, elevators, ... would also have a
pretty clear functional role forcing a player to perform sequences of
action much like a gameplay mechanics.

And in some games textures, sounds, animations, ... could also be used to
drive gameplay. For example a texture/image could be used as a terrain
height map and another texture/image could be used to determine (e.g. by
colour) where there is water, where there is deadly lava, ...

Those are just some quick (and a bit ugly) examples of functionality of
game content and they are in no way exhaustive. A lot better examples could
surely be constructed. Sorry for turning this post into a mess of random
ideas. My point is that it is better (for game developers) to have an
ability to create and enhance a content under CC-BY-SA 4.0 so that it could
be used with other CC-BY-SA 4.0 media on the net (film, music, fanart, ...)
and at the same time have an ability to "export" content to GPL making it
100% compatible with game engine/code. And there are some games which are
already using GPL-licenced content which means that they can't mix it with
CC-BY-SA content.

Another problem is if game content is mixed with game scripts (a code used
to control game mechanics at a high level) if scripts use functions
provided by game engine/code ("standard library" functions). If there is no
exception added to GPL and developers can't get all contributors to agree
on licencing under GPL with an exception then scripts licenced under
CC-BY-SA can't be used (this problem would probably impact only those
people who are less technical / less interested in licencing issues and
have simple chosen CC-BY-SA because they use it for content as well and are
not aware about consequences (a problems will be biggest when there will
later be many contributors and then it could be hard to make them all
licence under another licence)).

And of course version number could be a problem. New versions of CC-BY-SA
and GPL are not being released at the same time (at least right now). A lot
of software relies on GPL version 3 "or later" and if a content under
CC-BY-SA 4.0 would be "exported" to GPL version 3 (without "or later"),
then if there would be GPL v4 released then developers would be restricted
by what CC-BY-SA 4.0 allows (could not switch to latest GPL). Even if newer
CC-BY-SA version would add support of GPLv4 then if developers would
"export" CC-BY-SA 4.0 to GPLv3 (without "or later") and would be modifying
content, they would need an approval of all contributors in order to be
able to licence under GPLv4 (which could be problematic). And if they would
be improving content under CC-BY-SA instead, they would have to hope that
there will be a new version of CC-BY-SA released which will be compatible
in order to be able to use latest version of GPL. If I understand correctly
an "or later" clause is not part of a GPL licence text (unlike CC-BY-SA?
(at 4.b.)) but is rather written in a README file while a regular GPL text
is in LICENCE file. Would it be legal to make CC-BY-SA 4.0 to be one-way
"interoperable" with GPL version 3 "or later" instead of just GPL version 3?

There is also something not related to stuff above but still related to
games and interactive multimedia. If I understand correctly if a work is
licenced under CC-BY-SA and is presented somewhere (in a open show) then a
person/... who is presenting a work (author or not) does not have release
that work (unlike GPL-licenced work (if publicly available)) but any person
can still record a work (e.g. using a camera) and it will be legal and
can't be restricted by DRM?

If so then this only really help works which are non-interactive / which
are "linear" (a single "frame" (image) or a non-interactive "stream" (film,
sounds, music)) BUT it does not really help much if work is
interactive/"non-linear" (games, interactive multimedia) because during a
game/... only portion of content could be recorded and in a "hard to
reverse" way (a recording of a game can't be released as game content. game
content must be rebuild and only a portion of it will be recorder during a
course of game). This could be a problem when someone releases a work under
CC-BY-SA, then someone transforms it and puts it on a system to which there
is no direct access so that game content based upon some Else's content
cannot be extracted (in a directly usable form).

Recently there have been a "gaming console" developed where "user
interaction" is sent to server(s) and a recording of a games (in a form of
a film) is streamed back to player and is displayed so it is technically
impossible to get content out in a directly-usable form.

It is a problem at least to me personally. If someone would release
modification in that way I would have to play to be able to use a service
(which would be fine), then record a portion of a game presented to me and
then convert it back in order to be able to create some new game content
based on it while that other person could simply add some more content and
it would be restricted again.

I don't think that such system (where game is streamed as a film) could be
considered to be a DRM (or "effective technological measures" as it is
written in CC-BY-SA) because it is how a device is supposed to work so I
personally think CC-BY-SA does not offer enough "protection" for
"non-linear content" creators.

To some extent a AGPL version 3 (Affero GPL version 3) licence offers some
protection in such situation (for code) as it requires that an
AGPL-licenced code running on a remote machine / on a server side must be
disclosed while GPL version 3 code does not have to be and AGPLv3 is
compatible with GPLv3.

I'm not exactly sure what clauses in CC-BY-SA (and other licences?) could
be used for this (and I'm quite sure that some/many people will not want
it) but current state of CC-BY-SA (or my misunderstanding of it) is pretty
much the reason why I am considering releasing (in future) my game content
under a custom licence.

If some measures regarding this matter would be implemented in CC-BY-SA
(and other CC licences) and if there would still be a plan to have
CC-BY-SA-4.0 "exportable" to GPL then it would only makes sense if to have
it "exportable" to AGPL (version 3 or later) rather than GPL because GPL
would be "removing" requirement of disclosure (when everything would be
happening remotely).

Even if I would have my game engine/code licenced under AGPLv3+ someone
could still re-implement it or use another engine and use my CC-BY-SA in a
way I have described above and currently only a custom licence (or AGPLv3+)
would be a good solution for me.

== More raw material ==

Posted in cc-licenses: http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/cc-licenses/2011-December/006523.html

For me personally it is a huge problem that cc by-sa and GPL cannot be
used together in a combined work. That’s why I gathered some use-cases
for that.

1. Using already existing cultural works under GPL with content under cc by-sa (my personal use-case)

There already is quite a lot of GPL and cc by-sa content which cannot
be used together for purely legal reasons.

There is Battle for Wesnoth¹ with GPL licensed text and artwork, and
Ryzoom² with cc by-sa assets.

And (my case) there is my own free roleplaying game³ under GPL which
utilizes Wesnoth graphics but cannot use those from Ryzoom, even
though the Ryzoom folks freed their graphics with the intent of
allowing others to use them.

¹: http://wesnoth.org
²: http://media.ryzom.com/
³: http://1w6.org

2. Using Python scripts in blender

This already came up, but I want to add some legal stuff.

In GPLv3, something is considered a derivative work, if there is
“intimate data communication”. In Python importing a GPL module always
makes your code a derivative work, so you have to use the GPL,
too. When you use a python script in blender and you adapt it to the
specifics of your model - for example the nature of your rig - the
model and the code have intimate data communication, so it is very
likely that you have to licence your model under a GPL compatible
license.¹

Thought to the end, this could mean, that currently you are not allowed
to use cc by-sa with rigged blender models, when you use any kind of
non-generic scripting.

¹: Blender Python-scripts seem to be GPL without exception, so plugins
have to be GPL, too. It would be nice if someone versed in legalities
could check that:

https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender/source/blender/python/

3. Using content from free software in artworks

Currently you cannot make cc by-sa licensed artwork which uses GPL
works - and be it only a snippet of code.

If cc by-sa allowed usage with GPL code, then the resulting work would
have to be GPL, but the new assets could be licensed under cc by-sa.

4. Not restricting the design of programs with legal details

Many people argue, that you can just separate artwork from the code.

This means, however, that the licensing restricts the structure of the
program. For example blender would have to disallow scripts embedded
in .blend files, if the model is not under a GPL-compatible
license. And embedded scripts are too convenient to lose them due to
legal details.

(no time to write more - I hope these help as illustration)

Best wishes,
Arne

PS: Even though the Free Software Foundation deems art as
non-functional, I strongly disagree. Art is just as functional as
code, it just works through pathways which are harder to assess. Great
gameplay can crumble when you take away the music, and when the
gameplay is built around a narrative, it often needs the narrative to
realize its effect on the player. As a vicious example: What would
Mortal Combat be without someone shouting “Finish him”?

Art is functional. It just not necessarily runs on a computer, but on
our minds.