Hi, everyone. At long last, I've made some final revisions to the draft
summary of the Creative Commons 2.0 licenses. The main changes have
been:
* Additional phrasing changes due to MJ Ray
* Additional phrasing changes due to Francesco Poli
* Clear textual recommendations for Creative Commons
* Recommendations for trademark restrictions
The summary is also available here:
http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.txt
http://people.debian.org/~evan/ccsummary.html
Creative Commons has expressed interest in discussing these
recommendations with Debian representatives, with (I believe) the
intention to make the licenses DFSG-free.
I'd like to leave this draft up for a few days, and then put together a
workgroup of ~5 people (including, hopefully, the DPL or some other
official Debian representative, at least in an advisory role) to discuss
these licenses with Creative Commons. I'm thinking this work would
consist of one or two telephone conference calls of less than an hour
each, with possibly some email discussions.
~Evan
=====================================================
debian-legal Summary of Creative Commons 2.0 Licenses
=====================================================
:Author: Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org>
:Date: 18 Mar 2005
:Version: 3
:Contact: debian-legal mailing list <debian-legal@lists.debian.org>
:Copyright: This document is dedicated by the author to the public
domain.
This document gives a summary of the opinion of debian-legal members
on the six licenses that make up the Creative Commons license suite.
About debian-legal
==================
Debian [DEBIAN]_ is an operating system consisting entirely of Free
Software. Our definition of "Free Software" is specified in the
Debian Free Software Guidelines [DFSG]_.
debian-legal [LEGAL]_ is a mailing list whose members provide
guidance for the Debian project on, among other things, the
acceptability of software and other content for inclusion in the
Debian operating system. This includes comparing software against
the DFSG to determine if the packages are Free Software.
From time to time the debian-legal list provides a review of a
well-known software license to express a rough consensus opinion on
whether software released solely under the license would be Free
Software. Although these summaries are not binding, they do provide
some basis for the Debian project to make decisions about individual
packages.
About Creative Commons
======================
Creative Commons [CC]_ is an organization "devoted to expanding the
range of creative work available for others to build upon and
share." The organization has created a suite of licenses [LICENSES]_
that content creators can use to specify certain rights that the
public can exercise with respect to a particular work. The licenses
were released in December of 2002 and revised in May of 2004; there
are already over 1 million works released under a Creative Commons
license.
Although Creative Commons explicitly recommends that their licenses
not be used for programs [1]_, works licensed under the Creative
Commons licenses are still of interest to the Debian project. Debian
includes documentation for programs, and many programs included in
Debian use digital data such as images, sounds, video, or text that
are included with the programs in Debian.
The Creative Commons licenses are based on a common framework, but
have a varied number of license elements that can be included to
grant or revoke particular rights. Because of the similarity between
the licenses, this document covers all six of the revised (version
2.0) licenses.
License summaries
=================
Attribution 2.0
---------------
debian-legal contributors think that works licensed solely under the
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license [BY]_ are not free
according to the DFSG and should not be included in Debian.
We see the following problems with the license.
Removing References
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 4a of the license states, in part,
If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor
You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective
Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as
requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
Derivative Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original
Author, as requested.
Per DFSG 3, any licensee should be allowed to make and distribute
modified versions of a work. The above clause allows a licensor to
prohibit modified versions that mention them or reference them.
For example, an author who made a novel available under an
Attribution 2.0 license could give notice to disallow an annotated
version that mentions the author by name or simply as "the author".
A more specific example for Debian would be a programmer who creates
documentation licensed under Attribution 2.0. He could require that
references in derived versions to design or implementation decisions
he made for the program be removed.
In addition, Section 4b of the license requires that the author's
name, copyright notices, and some other information be included in
derivative works, "if supplied".
It's unclear whether the creator of a derivative work can comply
with the requirement to remove references and also comply with the
requirement to give attribution. It's not specified that a licensee
who has been asked to remove references to the licensor has the
requirements of attribution waived.
If a request to remove references can make it impossible for
licensees to comply with section 4b, and thus makes it impossible
for them make derivative works (DFSG 3) or collective works (DFSG
1), the work is not free.
Any Other Comparable Authorship Credit
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 4b describes the requirements for crediting the Licensor for
his or her work. It states, in part:
Such credit may be implemented in any reasonable manner;
provided, however, that in the case of a Derivative Work or
Collective Work, at a minimum such credit will appear where any
other comparable authorship credit appears and in a manner at
least as prominent as such other comparable authorship credit.
There are several ambiguous or vague terms in this clause.
"any other"
This can mean "some other" or "all other". The first would mean
that authorship must be credited somewhere, and particularly
where other credit goes. The second would mean that authorship
must be credited everywhere that authors are credited.
"comparable authorship credit"
This could mean either "credit for comparable authorship" or
"comparable credit for authorship". The first interpretation
would allow crediting an author with all other authors who have
made similar contributions. The second would require crediting
the author where any author is credited, even if the level of
contribution is not comparable.
A licensee cannot exercise the rights granted in the license if they
can't meet these requirements. For this reason, the most pessimistic
interpretation of the requirements must be used. This would require
attribution for the licensor everywhere that authorship credit is
given, even if that credit is inaccurate, and even if the licensor's
contribution is not comparable to others. Some examples:
* If a work is a collection of essays by different authors, with
authorship credit given in the chapter titles, the Licensor's name
would have to be listed for each chapter title, even if they did
not contribute to it.
* For an encyclopedia with a large number of authors, all authors
would be listed at every point of authorship notice: on the spine,
on the front and back covers, on the title page.
* If Alice writes her autobiography, and includes lyrics from Bob's
song in one chapter, she must give him credit for the entire work:
"The Autobiography of Alice, by Alice and Bob", or even The
Autobiography of Alice and Bob.
Requiring inaccurate or excessive authorship credits is an
unreasonable restriction on distribution (DFSG 1) and making
modified versions (DFSG 3).
Anti-DRM clause
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 4a says, in part,
You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform,
or publicly digitally perform the Work with any
technological measures that control access or use of the
Work in a manner inconsistent with the terms of this License
Agreement.
It's not clear which if any "technological measures" would be
consistent with the terms of the license. Because of this vagueness,
we have to take a worst-case view and consider that there are *no*
such measures that are allowed.
If this is the case, private distribution of the work would seem to
be forbidden. Along with obvious technological measures that control
access, such as a firewall on a LAN or a virtual private network
(VPN), distributing using encryption (such as Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL)) would appear to be prohibited.
DFSG 1 requires that works be freely redistributable, both publicly
and privately. Disallowing private distribution appears to be
incompatible with that goal.
Trademark Restrictions
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only version of the license available from Creative Commons is a
Web page that includes the following text:
Except for the limited purpose of indicating to the public that
the Work is licensed under the CCPL, neither party will use the
trademark "Creative Commons" or any related trademark or logo of
Creative Commons without the prior written consent of Creative
Commons.
These restrictions make excessive demands on both licensor and
licensee, and abridge their fair use rights to the Creative Commons
trademarks. This puts an excessive burden on the licensee and
effectively prevents redistribution (DFSG 1) and modification (DFSG
3). In addition, it violates DFSG 9, "License Must Not Contaminate
Other Software", since it prohibits fair use of the trademark even
in works unrelated to the current one.
Note that the HTML source code for the Web page includes a comment
that the trademark restrictions are "NOT A PART OF THE LICENSE". In
a graphical Web browser, the text for the trademark restrictions are
visually distinct from the license text. Creative Commons
representatives have stated that the trademark restrictions are not
part of the license. Finally, the same block of text states,
"Creative Commons is not a party to this License, [...]".
However, debian-legal feels that the visual distinctions are not
sufficiently clear to indicate that the trademark restrictions are
not part of the license, and some instances of the license found in
the wild include the trademark restrictions. The relation of the
trademark restrictions to the license proper is sufficiently
ambiguous to make it difficult for licensees to comply.
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0
--------------------------
debian-legal contributors think that works licensed solely under the
Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 [BY-SA]_ are not free according to the
DFSG and should not be included in Debian.
The Attribution-ShareAlike has the same problems as the Attribution
2.0 license.
NoDerivs licenses
-----------------
debian-legal contributors think that works licensed solely under
licenses with the NoDerivs license element are not free according to
the DFSG and should not be included in Debian. These licenses
include:
* the Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 license [BY-ND]_
* the Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license [BY-NC-ND]_
These licenses have the same problems as the Attribution 2.0
license. In addition, there is no grant of rights to make derivative
works, which is required by DFSG 3.
NonCommercial licenses
----------------------
debian-legal contributors think that works licensed solely under
licenses with the NonCommercial license element are not free
according to the DFSG and should not be included in Debian. These
licenses include:
* Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 license
* Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 license [BY-NC]_
* Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 license [BY-NC-SA]_
These licenses have the same problems as the Attribution 2.0
license. In addition, Section 4b (Section 4c in the by-nc-sa 2.0)
says:
You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section
3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed
toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.
This is incompatible with DFSG 6, "No Discrimination Against Fields
of Endeavor", which includes discrimination against businesses. It's
also incompatible with DFSG 1, which requires that licensees be
allowed to sell copies of the work.
Recommendations for Authors
===========================
debian-legal contributors recommend that authors who wish to create
works compatible with the Debian Free Software Guidelines should not
use any of the licenses in the Creative Commons license suite.
Authors who use or are planning to use a Creative Commons license
that includes the NonCommercial or NoDerivs license elements should
understand that these restrictions are incompatible with Free
Software.
Authors who use or are planning to use the Attribution 2.0 license
should consider a similar Free Software license such as a BSD- or
MIT-style license [BSD]_, [MIT]_.
Authors who use or are planning to use the Attribution-ShareAlike
2.0 license should consider a similar Free Software license such as
the GNU General Public License [GPL]_.
Recommendations for Creative Commons
====================================
debian-legal contributors believe that problems with the Creative
Commons licenses that include the NoDerivs or NonCommercial license
elements cannot be fixed without changing the apparent purpose of
the licenses.
The Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike licenses, however, seem
to be intended to make works Free in a way compatible with the DFSG.
For this reason, we make the following suggestions for future
versions of the Attribution and Attribution-ShareAlike licenses
that, barring other changes, should make the licenses compatible
with the DFSG.
1. **Limit scope of requests to remove references**. The intention
of the clause for removing references to a licensor seems to be
that *authorship credits* should be removed. This should be
specified, rather than "any reference". Some suggested text for
section 4a:
If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor
You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
Collective Work any *authorship credit for* such Licensor or
the Original Author, as requested. If You create a Derivative
Work, upon notice from any Licensor You must, to the extent
practicable, remove from the Derivative Work any *authorship
credit for* such Licensor or the Original Author, as
requested.
2. **Waive attribution after request to remove references**. It
should be made explicit that if the Licensor requires that
references to them be removed, this excuses the licensee from the
requirements for attribution. A modification to section 4b might
be:
[...] by conveying the name (or pseudonym if applicable) of
the Original Author if supplied *and no request has been made
to remove it*; [...]
3. **Allow access-controlled private distribution**. The anti-DRM
clause should be changed to make it clear that the licensee can't
prevent others receiving the work from exercising the same rights
that the licensee has.
4. **Allow distribution of rights-restricted copies of works if
unrestricted copies are also made available.** The following
modified version of the anti-DRM clause in section 4a may be a
good starting point.
You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
publicly digitally perform the Work with any technological
measures that control access or use of the Work in a manner
inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement, *unless
you also simultaneously distribute, publicly display, publicly
perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work to the same
recipients without such measures.*
5. **Require "credit for comparable authorship" rather than
"comparable authorship credit".** This makes it clear that the
Licensor should be credited in proportion to their contribution,
rather than equally to all other authors.
6. **Specify "other credit".** Licensors should receive *some*
credit, but adding their name wherever *any* credit is made is
excessive and inaccurate. Suggested text:
[...] at a minimum such credit will appear where *other credit
for comparable authorship* appears and in a manner at least as
prominent as such other *credit for comparable authorship*.
7. **More clearly identify non-license trademark restrictions.** The
trademark restrictions should be clearly labelled, in text and
not in the comments, as not part of the license. Separating the
organization's trademark policy into another, linked document
would be clearer still.
8. **Rephrase overreaching trademark restrictions.** The trademark
restrictions should be relaxed or rephrased so that licensors and
licensees are not denied rights to the Creative Commons
trademarks they would have if they did not use the licenses.
Suggested text:
Creative Commons grants everyone a license to use the
trademark "Creative Commons" and related trademarks and logos
to indicate to the public that the Work is licensed under the
CCPL. Creative Commons reserves all other rights to its
trademarks under trademark law; nobody may use the trademark
"Creative Commons" or any related trademark or logo of
Creative Commons without the prior written consent of Creative
Commons, except as allowed under trademark law.
Note that new versions will be evaluated on their own, and problems
introduced in the new version or that weren't covered in this
summary may still make the licenses incompatible with the DFSG. In
other words, these suggestions come with no guarantees.
References
==========
.. [DEBIAN] http://www.debian.org/
.. [DFSG] http://www.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
.. [LEGAL] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/
.. [CC] http://creativecommons.org/
.. [LICENSES] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
.. [1] http://creativecommons.org/faq#faq_entry_3646
.. [BY] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
.. [BY-ND] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/
.. [BY-NC-ND] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/
.. [BY-NC] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/
.. [BY-NC-SA] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/
.. [BY-SA] http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
.. [BSD] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.php
.. [MIT] http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php
.. [GPL] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
--
Evan Prodromou <evan@debian.org>
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