The harm of “non-commercial” | Hacker News Reader

The harm of “non-commercial”

blog.georgikobilarov.com

16 pointsbensummers12 comments

Creative Commons have known this was a stupid licence since they introduced it, software licences had been through the same thing and learned from it. They really should withdraw it, which is what I thought the recent consultation was leading up to.

If you have to ask the users of your pro forma legal document "By the way, what do you think this actually allows and prohibits?" then you're clearly failing at your assigned task.

A link to the research paper:

http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Defining_Noncommercial

Why would anyone think that "non-commercial" would only prevent earning money on the licensed material? if the material plays any role in a commercial endeavour obviously you cannot use it if it is CC "non-commercial". That is why the license reads: "You may not use this work for commercial purposes." not "You may not earn money of this work."

Seems obvious to me. Non-commercial pretty much only allows private usage or usage by non-profits. That's how I read it all the time.

but what's a commercial endeavour? you can't use the term commercial to define non-commercial.

I've traditionally licensed my stuff as NC-BY-SA (photos) under this logic:

I want attribution for the work. Seems to be a fair ask. I want people to keep sharing the work as it changes. The last thing I want is for my photo to be on the front of Newsweek, or worse- used in a commercial campaign that I don't want, but without getting a few dollars out of it.

I know this isn't a startup- but for my photos, I don't simply believe that a major commercial/newspaper/etc using my photo will give me enough publicity to make money from other photography efforts. I've had photos used in the NYT and other large publications- it doesn't automatically happen.

That being said, when I am contacted about commercial use I am HIGHLY permissive and allow 98% of businesses to use my photos for free.

when I am contacted about commercial use I am HIGHLY permissive and allow 98% of businesses to use my photos for free.

Mind if I ask why?

If you allow business to use your photos "for free" isn't that essentially the same thing as giving away a valuable, duplicable product that a company can technically classify as "inventory" for free?

Copyright issues are tough, but the more the Digital Age moves us toward the realm where artistic and creative types should be and actually _get_ compensated for their work, the more the intangible creative value is worth.

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

Non Commercial is basically useless. The only non-commercial site I can think of is some mum blogging about her dog. Even if I just have a personal blog it is kind of commercial because it is marketing for myself.

I work for a registered non-profit charity financed partly by The Arts Council and National Lottery Funding. You'd certainly call our licensed bar and restaurant a commercial enterprise, as would the employees.

I also volunteer for a registered co-operative part-financed by said charity, the rest from ticket sales of our film screenings. We have no legal obligation to be non-profit or otherwise.

If I used your non-comm image on our website, how would you feel ?

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