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Creative Commons Launches CC+ License

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the all-about-just-gettin-paid dept.

E1ven writes "Creative Commons has this week released their CC+ protocol, which provides a way for authors to allow other people to commercially reuse their work, and give them a pre-negotiated fee or percentage. It makes it easy for people to release the Material under CC-No-Commercial, and then have a way to charge for commercial use if companies are interested."

2 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. How do you define commercial? by Njovich · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So, what are the limits of the word 'commercial'? The way I read this license, you basically can not use this for anything. Websites with advertisements have an indirect trade or profit goal, you can't use the content on something like Youtube (which is part of a for-profit company), you can't use the artwork in a GPL'ed piece of code (it allows commercial use). Even a private artwork can be seen as a work to improve someones portfolio. The potential for good would be a lot bigger if the CC licenses didn't have this limit.

    Of course, everyone should pick the license they want, but I think people underestimate just how limiting the NC licenses are for people that try to stick to the law.

  2. "Commercial Use" ill-defined? by ortholattice · · Score: 3, Interesting
    One problem I have with this and other "non-commercial" CC licenses is that "non-commercial" doesn't seem, to me, to be clearly defined. Certainly there can be blatant commercial uses that are easy to identify, but there are many situations where it is not so clear. Suppose, for example, the material is posted a personal home page, which is provided free by the ISP in exchange for advertisements. Does that constitute "commercial use"? Clearly, the ISP is profiting from the material if it is drawing people to that page and thus the ads. Who owes who what money?

    Is a Red Cross advertisement commercial or noncommercial? If the Red Cross paid a magazine for an ad containing a CC+ licensed image, then the magazine is earning some money from it, even though the Red Cross itself is non-commercial. (Or is it?)

    It is even hard to come up with examples where the use is disconnected from the slightest taint of a direct or indirect commercial connection.

    Of course, CC+ is also incompatible with GPL-licensed software. For example, a CC licensed "non-commercial use" icon in a software package would prevent a commercial entity from using it, defeating the purpose of the GPL.