It was back in late 2006 I switched my flickr photo creative commons license to the simple, and sharable, by attribution license. I said then:
So I am considering, pondering, swaying that the most free, is the simple BY Attribution license, and until someone strongly can compel me backward, have switched this on my blog and my flickr collections.
I now have been strongly compelled, by Alec Corous’ recent post on Considering CC-Non Commercial. Alec does have a new Amazing Story where his video of him helping his daugher learn to ride a bicycle was found, and licensed by Nokia to be part of a new commercial.
Not just part- it is the crowning last segment in a montage, the one the closes the deal on the commercial’s message- check it our yourself http://stalkr.tv/Media/Nokia.mp4.
The thing is that his use of the BY-NC creative commons license (it can be used in any work if someone provides attributiona nd it is for non-commercial work.
The key here is that this license does not preven commercial use of Alec’s media- it just means someone wishing to gain from a commercial use, they have to seek permission from Alec (and likely compensate him, as what happened with his video). Again, if someone wants to use his video for monetary gain, they need to pay or get approval from the copyright holder; but for everyone else, they can still freely use it without needing to seek permissions.
As Stephen Downes notes in a comment ion Alec’s post
Basically, what the NC provision says is that, if they make money, I make money, and they they don’t make money, I don’t make money. Nice, reciprocal, and fair.
This is not about dreaming of profiteering from sales of my flickr media, and any dreams I have of that are most definitely a fantasy.
So I just flipped my default flickr license in past and future photos to BY-NC. One downside I have noted is that a frequent flickr contact who has harvested a number of my CC flickr photos for WikiPedia articles, tells me that Wikipedia will not accept BY-NC licensed photos. I cannot find the rationale, but I’m willing to flip an image back to BY when Pete asks.
Bye Bye BY!
Interesting turn of events… I see your blog is still BY?
Speaking for myself, I will continue to eschew the NC clause. I dream of being exploited by some mega-corp, I think it’s an essential step on my dream journey of selling out.
I’m still playing it out, I might flip back.
I can only dream of selling out. And I’d be damn cheap.
The blog is still BY. I’m more squishy on what CC means for blogs; I cant really see any commercial value at all in my barkings, and the re-use of a blog post is more murky than an image as it is not a mono entity.
See http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing/Justifications
More broadly Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites follow http://freedomdefined.org which has a very long page elaborating why they don’t recommend NC, see http://freedomdefined.org/Licenses/NC
The more straightforward approach to require reciprocity is to use BY-SA. It says that if I share, you share too. This makes sense, especially where profits are acknowledged as fantasy. And if (eg, Nokia) doesn’t want to share, they still have to cut a separate deal with you.
Just FWIW, not meant as criticism.
BTW, I enjoy your footer and http://cogdogblog.com/2006/10/25/linktribution/ — that attribution can require linking, the basic currency of the web, is an underappreciated feature of CC licenses.
Thanks Mike. It is a rather quagmire of decision for the average Joe/Jane to sort out. I have no issue going SA. And in reviewing your links, it makes sense to jump from NC.
I have no dreams of wealth from my content; I’d prefer it be shared then making me pesos.
I gotta respect a guy with “Link” in his last name and a former super-continent in his URL
I am in tears.. no longer will I use images by Cog Dog.. because I can’t be sure if or when my work might be deemed commercial, and the last thing I’ll want to do is go back through it to contact all the authors who used NC and ask permission. You might as well go all the way copyright. For maximum flexibility and future proofing, I only use CC By, PD or sometimes CC By SA.
Hope you’ll swing back and make it known again Cog.
Black,
Dry the tears. See the comment above? I saw by folly and took my Flickr to By-SA but I am feeling fickle and in the end will go back to BY.
Good man. 🙂 Working on Alec too….