[Date Prev][Date Next] [Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: magnatune.com licensing



Kari Pahula <kaol@debian.org> writes:

> Here's what the [CC-BY-NC-SA-1.0] license says about NC:
> 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. The exchange of
> the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing
> or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed
> toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided
> there is no payment of any monetary compensation in connection with
> the exchange of copyrighted works.
>
> However, if you try to download the music and choose Non-Commercial
> license on magnatune's download page they state (at
> https://magnatune.com/artists/license/student):
>
> Common examples of uses we consider non-commercial are:
> ...
> GNU/Berkeley/OSI licensed games or software that are given away for
> free (or included incidentally inside a larger distribution, even in a
> pay-distribution)

This implicitly excludes any software that is *not* "given away for
free". It is contradictory in the parenthetical part; "even a
pay-distribution" conflicts with the actual license text you quoted
above.

> Would this suffice to override what the license says about NC use?
> If so, it would seem that this would satisfy DFSG1.

Yes, it seems to satisfy DFSG1.

> I'm still unsure whether it would run afoul of DFSG6 or DFSG9.  If
> you were to take the music out of the game and distribute it alone,
> the NC part would certainly kick in.

That certainly seems to fail DFSG6. Any part of Debian must be free
even when a recipient takes it out of Debian.

-- 
 \       Eccles: "I just saw the Earth through the clouds!"  Lew: "Did |
  `\     it look round?"  Eccles: "Yes, but I don't think it saw me."  |
_o__)                          -- The Goon Show, _Wings Over Dagenham_ |
Ben Finney



Reply to: