CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

Postby Nikita_Sadkov » 04 Aug 2015, 21:01

There is a lot of contradiction with CC licenses.

To give you an example, http://opengameart.org/content/the-revolution-snow states
> License(s): CC-BY-SA 3.0

and the original site confirms: https://web.archive.org/web/20140416105 ... leset.html
> All content on this website is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported

yet at the same it time states:
- This tileset is free to use for all none commercial projects
- Please contact me for commercial use

so what would happen, if anybody uses such (lets dub it "Schrodinger CC") content in a commercial project?

In other words, what would judge decide if author sues, saying that he both allowed and forbade commercial use at the same time? What would take priority?
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Re: CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

Postby onpon4 » 05 Aug 2015, 00:44

I'm not a lawyer, but this is what I think about it: since the author clearly and unambiguously stated that all "content" on the website is under that license, and especially considering that those statements don't say that commercial use without contacting the author is forbidden (they only request it), I don't think the author can reasonably claim that the work is not distributable under that license. If they could, that would basically invalidate claims such as, "all of my work on such-and-such archive is released to the public domain", which I think have been made before, and such works used by e.g. the Debian project.
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Re: CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

Postby c_xong » 05 Aug 2015, 01:02

If the original author is posting it then they are allowed to offer multiple licenses. The one on OGA doesn't have those extra clauses so it is simply CC BY-SA 3.0
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Re: CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

Postby Nikita_Sadkov » 05 Aug 2015, 01:49

c_xong {l Wrote}:If the original author is posting it then they are allowed to offer multiple licenses. The one on OGA doesn't have those extra clauses so it is simply CC BY-SA 3.0

Okay. You have got yourself sued and now standing before an austere looking judge. So how would you prove that the guy who uploaded content to OGA and the original artist are the same person?

Because archive.org would prove, that assets first appeared on author's site, which explicitly forbids commercial use, yet also states that "All content on this website is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported"
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Re: CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

Postby onpon4 » 05 Aug 2015, 03:50

You misunderstand. When a work is under multiple licenses, someone who wants to redistribute the work chooses one of the licenses to follow, not both, unless the author explicitly tells you that you have to follow the conditions of both. So in this case, you can either choose to distribute the work under the more vague license indicated for non-commercial use, or under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Re: CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

Postby Nikita_Sadkov » 05 Aug 2015, 05:02

onpon4 {l Wrote}:You misunderstand. When a work is under multiple licenses, someone who wants to redistribute the work chooses one of the licenses to follow, not both, unless the author explicitly tells you that you have to follow the conditions of both. So in this case, you can either choose to distribute the work under the more vague license indicated for non-commercial use, or under CC BY-SA 3.0.

How do you know he offers it under multiple licenses and he later clarification doesn't cancel it?

The author can also believe that CC BY-SA 3.0 doesn't allow commercial use. Because it makes no sense releasing artworks to OGA and, at the same time, forbidding commercial use.
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Re: CC Licensing Quantum Mechanics

Postby onpon4 » 05 Aug 2015, 11:36

The author can also believe that CC BY-SA 3.0 doesn't allow commercial use.

If that's the case, it's on the author. Granting a license you didn't read to do something with your work doesn't make that license invalid. What good would a license be if someone could claim later at any time that they didn't know what the license said, and have it revoked on that basis?

The way I see it, the only way a license can be invalid is if someone else (not the author) made the claim and was incorrect.

How do you know he offers it under multiple licenses and he later clarification doesn't cancel it?

It may be possible, but I seriously doubt it. There's really nothing more to say about this without a real example of a court case, unfortunately.
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