4 ms·

This article is misleading in one important aspect - the license for the use of the collection of British Museum in commercial settings. The article states tha

This article is misleading in one important aspect - the license for the use of the collection of British Museum in commercial settings. The article states that the collection of the British Museum can be downloaded for free under the Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This international license permits the use of the subject licensed materials for commercial purposes. But a deeper look into the British Museum license proves that CC BY 4.0 is not applicable here. The Museum defines its license in specific terms (https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permissions https://www.britishmuseum.org/terms-use/copyright-and-permis...): the Museum's license specifically excludes commercial use in its license and even gives examples of sites and blogs that promote services, etc. So watch out! Don't rely on the Creative Commons license in this case. If you have a blog and you use one of their photos you may get in trouble. Go into the Museum's site and specifically read their license terms.

Freak_NL 6y ago
The article correctly states that the images are licenced under one of the Creative Commons 4.0 licences, and correctly states that only non-commercial use is allowed in the third paragraph, but the author of that article mistakenly links to the CC BY 4.0 licence instead of the correct one. The British Museum webpage you link to specifies the licence as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
- Freak_NL 6y ago
  Ian has since corrected the link by the way.
- greyman 6y ago
  Yes but it should be added that "only non-commercial use" excludes almost all practical usages. Even wikipedia doesn't allow to use non-commercial, since it's a legal minefield.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I'm a big fan of CC in general. And I can sort of get behind No Derivatives even though it goes against the "remix" idea that was some of the impetus for CC in the first place. (I actually learned the other week that even the FSF uses ND for media.) However, Non-Commercial is really bad. Yes, it encourages people to put their work into the commons with the knowledge that no one can legally profit off it. But it's essentially a feel-good license that lets people get warm and fuzzies for putting works into the commons even if, in practice, almost no one can use it. It's telling that CC spent literally years trying to define what NC meant and as far as I know never got to any sort of official definition.

Freak_NL 6y ago

The article correctly states that the images are licenced under one of the Creative Commons 4.0 licences, and correctly states that only non-commercial use is allowed in the third paragraph, but the author of that article mistakenly links to the CC BY 4.0 licence instead of the correct one. The British Museum webpage you link to specifies the licence as CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Freak_NL 6y ago
Ian has since corrected the link by the way.
greyman 6y ago
Yes but it should be added that "only non-commercial use" excludes almost all practical usages. Even wikipedia doesn't allow to use non-commercial, since it's a legal minefield.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I'm a big fan of CC in general. And I can sort of get behind No Derivatives even though it goes against the "remix" idea that was some of the impetus for CC in the first place. (I actually learned the other week that even the FSF uses ND for media.) However, Non-Commercial is really bad. Yes, it encourages people to put their work into the commons with the knowledge that no one can legally profit off it. But it's essentially a feel-good license that lets people get warm and fuzzies for putting works into the commons even if, in practice, almost no one can use it. It's telling that CC spent literally years trying to define what NC meant and as far as I know never got to any sort of official definition.