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This isn't as "obvious" as you think. First, you quoted the human-readable summary of the license, not the license itself. The CC-BY-NC 3.0 license actually s

This isn't as "obvious" as you think. First, you quoted the human-readable summary of the license, not the license itself. The CC-BY-NC 3.0 license actually 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." Note the word primarily - so if the use is only incidentally or secondarily commercial in nature, it may still be compatible with the "non-commercial" clauses. There are more details in the legalese of the license, but nevertheless this is a very vague and somewhat controversial license - so much that the Creative Commons organization did a survey of community members and published a lengthy report on the different ways of interpreting it: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17127 http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/17127 One question is: Do commercial businesses ever engage in non-commercial activities? Is Hacker News a non-commercial community site that happens to be operated by Y Combinator, or is it "primarily directed toward commercial advantage" merely by virtue of its affiliation?

macmac 17y ago
I find the license even clearer than the summary I quoted. I am missing a actual usage scenario where one could be uncertain if the use was inside or outside the license.
- mbrubeck 17y ago
  Suppose I'm a tenured professor and I publish a blog with educational posts about computer science. I write blog entries during my working hours. The blog isn't a requirement of my job but it may help raise my academic profile. Am I free to use your CC-BY-SA 3.0 photo to illustrate my blog post? What if, instead of a professor, I am a freelance programmer. There are no ads or other exchange of money directly related to the blog, but sometimes potential clients find me through my blog. But the blog is also a way for me to converse with a group of regular readers whom I already know. Is this blog primarily directed toward commercial advantage? In either of the above scenarious, suppose the blog has ads but that I don't turn a profit on it (i.e. the ads defray but do not cover the hosting cost). How about now? Or what if the revenue from the ads is more than the hosting cost, but much less than I could make through my professional activities. If the amount of money is tiny relative to the time I spend on the blog, could I argue that the blog is not primarily directed toward commercial advantage? You may find each of these cases perfectly clear and obvious, but wherever you draw an "obvious" line, the above study probably shows that many Creative Commons members will think it should be somewhere else. Even the organization that drafted the license admits that it doesn't provide very explicit guidance for common cases like web sites that include (but don't rely on) advertising, or sites that do not involve exchange of money but may provide less-tangible commercial advantages for their owners.
Huppie 17y ago
As far as I understood the license the primarily is a very important. I had some discussion at work some time ago about Winsplit Revolution, which is licenced under CC:BY-NC-ND. They even have a statement in the Winsplit FAQ: Can I use WinSplit at work ? Of course you can ! The actual licence's "non-commercial" term just means that you can't directly make benefits with WinSplit Revolution. For example, you can't include it in a commercial package of software that you would sell. But as it is a freeware, you can distibute it freely as often as you want. The primary goal of using Winsplit is 'helping us make money' (by helping us do our jobs easier), which only slightly differs from 'making us money'. The only way it could (primarily) make us money would be if we sold it or if we would put a download-page up only to collect ad-revenue.

macmac 17y ago

I find the license even clearer than the summary I quoted. I am missing a actual usage scenario where one could be uncertain if the use was inside or outside the license.

mbrubeck 17y ago
Suppose I'm a tenured professor and I publish a blog with educational posts about computer science. I write blog entries during my working hours. The blog isn't a requirement of my job but it may help raise my academic profile. Am I free to use your CC-BY-SA 3.0 photo to illustrate my blog post? What if, instead of a professor, I am a freelance programmer. There are no ads or other exchange of money directly related to the blog, but sometimes potential clients find me through my blog. But the blog is also a way for me to converse with a group of regular readers whom I already know. Is this blog primarily directed toward commercial advantage? In either of the above scenarious, suppose the blog has ads but that I don't turn a profit on it (i.e. the ads defray but do not cover the hosting cost). How about now? Or what if the revenue from the ads is more than the hosting cost, but much less than I could make through my professional activities. If the amount of money is tiny relative to the time I spend on the blog, could I argue that the blog is not primarily directed toward commercial advantage? You may find each of these cases perfectly clear and obvious, but wherever you draw an "obvious" line, the above study probably shows that many Creative Commons members will think it should be somewhere else. Even the organization that drafted the license admits that it doesn't provide very explicit guidance for common cases like web sites that include (but don't rely on) advertising, or sites that do not involve exchange of money but may provide less-tangible commercial advantages for their owners.

Huppie 17y ago

As far as I understood the license the primarily is a very important. I had some discussion at work some time ago about Winsplit Revolution, which is licenced under CC:BY-NC-ND. They even have a statement in the Winsplit FAQ: Can I use WinSplit at work ? Of course you can ! The actual licence's "non-commercial" term just means that you can't directly make benefits with WinSplit Revolution. For example, you can't include it in a commercial package of software that you would sell. But as it is a freeware, you can distibute it freely as often as you want. The primary goal of using Winsplit is 'helping us make money' (by helping us do our jobs easier), which only slightly differs from 'making us money'. The only way it could (primarily) make us money would be if we sold it or if we would put a download-page up only to collect ad-revenue.