Creative Commons (CC) licenses and software/code

[zer0Kerbal]

Just a heads up. Been researching licenses for my mods and stumbled upon this:

Creative Commons does NOT recommend using CC licenses (any) for software (link)

to repeat: CC licenses are not meant for code 

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Creative Commons recommends and uses free and open source software licenses for software.

from their wiki:

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Make sure the material is appropriate for CC licensing.

CC licenses are appropriate for all types of content you want to share publicly, except software and hardware.

they recommend:

Open Source Initiative list:

Free Software Foundation:  Various Licenses and Comments about Them

 

Moderators: Maybe this should be a sticky????

 

[Nils277]

This is indeed a quite important information that has  come up in some threads discussing licenses and also resulted in the following thread:

Here it is stated that...

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At this point, it becomes important whether you're licensing software or some other work like art assets. The Creative Commons licenses aren't recommended for software, and some licenses are specialized for software. If your addon consists of both art and software, you should probably license them separately.

So yes, you are correct that the CC license is not recommended for software. On the other side e.g. the Apache Licence 2.0 is primarily intended for software. For my mods i followed the suggestion and licenced the art assets under the CC-BY-NC, while using the Apache License 2.0 for the source code. I think this solution works pretty good.

 

Question is: What happens if someone did use the CC license for the source code? Is this license invalid and would make adaptions/continuations inpossible since then "All rights reserved" would be applied?
Not using the CC license for software is rather a recommendation from the creators of the CC license since the license was not developed with software in mind. That could mean that it may grant more (or less) rights to others than the autor originally intendet. However, i do not think that using a CC license for source code would invalidate said license resulting in "All rights reserverd".

The Legal Code of e.g. the CC-BY license does not explicidly exclude software. Therefore it should still be valid.

Disclaimer: I'm not a laywer nor have i any expertise in law. This is just my personal assesment of the matter.

 

Ps. Following stickied thread also links to the License Selection Guide:

 

Edited June 7, 2021 by Nils277
Clarification that CC does NOT exclude software in the legal code

[Lisias]

On 6/6/2021 at 11:00 AM, Nils277 said:

For my mods i followed the suggestion and licenced the art assets under the CC-BY-NC, while using the Apache License 2.0 for the source code. I think this solution works pretty good.

The problem with the NC option is that it prevent any kind of commercial use, including the indirect ones.

On USA, a professional doing volunteer work on his area is considered Commercial Activity, because it's understood that the guy is promoting itself (marketing) while doing the work. So, theoretically, professional programmers should not touch code licensed under CC-NC (at least on USA). The same for 3D modellers on 3D models, and so on.

Additionally, you cannot ask for patronage neither, as it is also considered a Commercial Activity on USA. (and if you don't file an Organisation under the 503 C 3, you can't receive donations, by the way - so without it, any money you receive is patronage, and so it's a commercial relationship).

[Nils277]

@Lisias I can understand your concerns, but the CC license expressly defines NonCommercial as;

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“NonCommercial means not primarily intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”
...
The inclusion of “primarily” in the definition recognizes that no activity is completely disconnected from commercial activity; it is only the primary purpose of the reuse that needs to be considered.

and furthermore, explicidly invalidating the problem about who can use  material with the CC-NC:

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NonCommercial turns on the use, not the identity of the reuser.
The definition of NonCommercial depends on the primary purpose for which the work is used, not on the category or class of reuser.
....
A reuser that is not obviously noncommercial in nature may use NC-licensed content if its use is NonCommercial in accordance with the definition. The context and purpose of the use is relevant when making the determination, but no class of reuser is per se permitted or excluded from using an NC-licensed work.

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/NonCommercial_interpretation

 

20 hours ago, Lisias said:

...
Additionally, you cannot ask for patronage neither, as it is also considered a Commercial Activity on USA.

It is a commercial activity, yes, but it is still not primarily intended for commercial use, which is the key point of the NC clause.
In fact the Forum Rules 2.2i already prohibits posts (and therefore also post about mods) that are done primarily  for monetary compensation. Therefore any Mod that is not removed because it violates the forum rules should also be in accordance with the NC clause of the CC license.

Furthermore, the interpretation of such licenses is not based on the legislative of the country it is used in. The Creative Commons organization is based in the USA, it would make absolutely no sense defining a part  of the NC clause when the legislation of the very same country the organization is based in causes the interpretation of the clause to be null and void. 

If the official interpretation of a copyright license term can be invalidated individually by each countries legislation, there would be absolute chaos. Just imagine what would happen  if a country just would decide that there is no such thing as a copyright?  Or way worse, that all copyright licenses are invalid and the term "all rights reserved " applies requiring everyone to have an explicid written permit from the original creator?

Edited June 16, 2021 by Nils277

[Lisias]

4 hours ago, Nils277 said:

@Lisias I can understand your concerns, but the CC license expressly defines NonCommercial as;

and furthermore, explicidly invalidating the problem about who can use  material with the CC-NC:

https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/NonCommercial_interpretation

This is not exactly how Laws work. The final interpretation of the meaning of a License is defined by a Court in Common Law systems, and the License is not helping neither. "Primarily" is somewhat vague: a retired professional those only activity is to maintain CC-NC material under patronage is doing it as a primary activity?

The only activity explicitly exempted from the Non Commercial activity is file sharing!

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For purposes of this Public License, the exchange of the Licensed Material for other material subject to Copyright and Similar Rights by digital file-sharing or similar means is NonCommercial provided there is no payment of monetary compensation in connection with the exchange.

Additionally on the same license:

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License grant.

1. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Public License, the Licensor hereby grants You a worldwide, royalty-free, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, irrevocable license to exercise the Licensed Rights in the Licensed Material to:
   1. reproduce and Share the Licensed Material, in whole or in part, for NonCommercial purposes only; and
   2. produce, reproduce, and Share Adapted Material for NonCommercial purposes only.

Please note that on granting the License, the "primary" word is not used. But even by that, since we are talking legalese, we need to use legal terms properly. The definition of "primary" is:

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Primary Activity means an activity which fulfills a primary function of an establishment, institution, household, or other entity.

https://www.lawinsider.com/dictionary/primary-activity

And this is the interpretation a Court of Law will use if someone gets sued.

4 hours ago, Nils277 said:

Furthermore, the interpretation of such licenses is not based on the legislative of the country it is used in. The Creative Commons organization is based in the USA, it would make absolutely no sense defining a part  of the NC clause when the legislation of the very same country the organization is based in causes the interpretation of the clause to be null and void. 

Yes, it is. Every citizen is subject to his local laws first. Always. The USA's Copyright Act is only enforceable on USA, and there's nothing someone can do about. Some of the protections of the USA's Copyright Act is enforceable here where I live because there're local laws saying that.

Additionally, from the very same license:

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1. For the avoidance of doubt, this Public License does not, and shall not be interpreted to, reduce, limit, restrict, or impose conditions on any use of the Licensed Material that could lawfully be made without permission under this Public License.
2. To the extent possible, if any provision of this Public License is deemed unenforceable, it shall be automatically reformed to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. If the provision cannot be reformed, it shall be severed from this Public License without affecting the enforceability of the remaining terms and conditions.

What it's an explicit concession that the License is subjected to the local laws of the user.

(By the cold letter of the law, the first paragraph s redundant, because there's no legal way for a License to overrule a Law. Point. This clausule is merely informative.)

The second paragraph is trying to "salvage" the situation where that happens (the opposite of what the GPL does, by the way, that essentially fully nullify itself withdrawing any granted rights).

 

4 hours ago, Nils277 said:

If the official interpretation of a copyright license term can be invalidated individually by each countries legislation, there would be absolute chaos. Just imagine what would happen  if a country just would decide that there is no such thing as a copyright?

But this is exactly how Law works.

On Common Law countries, the only real "official" interpretation is given by a Court of Law. On Roman Law countries, by the letter of the Law itself (and when the law needs further interpretation, by a"High Court").

Any provision to the contrary is null and void.

4 hours ago, Nils277 said:

 Or way worse, that all copyright licenses are invalid and the term "all rights reserved " applies requiring everyone to have an explicid written permit from the original creator?

This is exactly how Copyright works.

And this is the reason that Copyright needs International Agreements in order to be enforceable on a country.

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Copyright is a creation of law in each country, and therefore there is no such thing as an international copyright law. Nevertheless, nearly 180 countries have ratified a treaty – the Berne Convention, administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) – that sets a minimum set of standards for the protection of the rights of the creators of copyrighted works around the world.

In addition, there have been efforts to harmonize copyright law in Europe and other regions. The differences in national copyright laws, however, can represent a challenge for global organizations with employees working in different countries and sharing content across boundaries.

https://www.rightsdirect.com/international-copyright-basics/

Edited June 16, 2021 by Lisias
tyops!

[zer0Kerbal]

On 6/16/2021 at 7:35 AM, Lisias said:

irrevocable

that is scary.

I will no longer use CC licenses. My personal preference, and also under advice of legal council. 

[Lisias]

This thread is a bit old right now, but it's still the best place to discuss the matter.

A few months after this thread, the US Court of Appeals decided that claiming Open Source on a code not licensed under a OSI approved license is false advertising.

Court affirms it’s false advertising to claim software is Open Source when it’s not

For a false advertising claim, there must be a false statement in commercial advertising and the statement must be deceptive in a material way. The trial court held that characterizing software that was under the Commons Clause as “free and open source” was false.

https://opensource.org/blog/court-affirms-its-false-advertising-to-claim-software-is-open-source-when-its-not

Do not misunderstand Commons Clause with Creative Commons, they are two different things - but it's important to notice that Creative Commons is not listed as a Open Source license neither.

https://opensource.org/license