CC license logos/buttons

[Richard Fontana]

With the licensing switch from OPL to CC-BY-SA, there is some interest
in using Creative Commons' logos and CC-BY-SA license button image
thingies in generated Fedora documentation and the Fedora wiki. This is
raising some questions about whether we can actually package the
logo/button thingies in Publican and whether indeed such content can be
used on Fedora websites. 

Based on discussions I have had with Spot, the default terms of use for
such content[1] clash with Fedora legal policy concerning freely
redistributable content.  Moreover, based on preliminary communication
with lawyers for Creative Commons I believe we do not have permission
to package these logo/button thingies in Publican, regardless of Fedora
legal policy. 

We are planning on exploring with Creative Commons' lawyers the
possibility of getting sufficient additional permission to address some
of these impediments, but for the time being we should assume that the
CC logo/button thingies can't be used by Fedora.

- RF

[1]See http://creativecommons.org/policies

-- 
Richard E. Fontana
Red Hat, Inc.

[Eric Christensen]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 06:01, Richard Fontana<rfontana(a)redhat.com> wrote:
>  With the licensing switch from OPL to CC-BY-SA, there is some
> interest
>  in using Creative Commons' logos and CC-BY-SA license button image
>  thingies in generated Fedora documentation and the Fedora wiki. This is
>  raising some questions about whether we can actually package the
>  logo/button thingies in Publican and whether indeed such content can be
>  used on Fedora websites.
>
>  Based on discussions I have had with Spot, the default terms of use for
>  such content[1] clash with Fedora legal policy concerning freely
>  redistributable content.  Moreover, based on preliminary communication
>  with lawyers for Creative Commons I believe we do not have permission
>  to package these logo/button thingies in Publican, regardless of Fedora
>  legal policy.
>
>  We are planning on exploring with Creative Commons' lawyers the
>  possibility of getting sufficient additional permission to address some
>  of these impediments, but for the time being we should assume that the
>  CC logo/button thingies can't be used by Fedora.
>
>  - RF
>
>  [1]See http://creativecommons.org/policies
>
>  --
>  Richard E. Fontana
>  Red Hat, Inc. 
Good Morning Richard,
Ahhh...  I see what you mean.  The page says:

Creative Commons License Buttons: The Creative Commons buttons that
describe a key term of our license, such as BY, NC, ND, SA, Sampling,
Sampling Plus and Noncommercial Sampling Plus may only be used in the
context of pointing to a Creative Commons license on the Creative
Commons server that includes that license term or to otherwise
describe the Creative Commons license, that includes that license term
and that applies to a particular work.

But we can't "point" to the website because these are books and not a
webpage.  I went through the license survey again and noted for
"offline" work that we should use the following text:

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share
Alike 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to
Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco,
California, 94105, USA.

It doesn't say anything about using the image.

Thanks for the catch!

--Eric

[John J. McDonough]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Eric Christensen" <eric(a)christensenplace.us&gt;
To: "For participants of the Documentation Project" 
<fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
Cc: <tcallawa(a)redhat.com>; <pchestek(a)redhat.com&gt;
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:04 AM
Subject: Re: CC license logos/buttons



"Creative Commons License Buttons: The Creative Commons buttons that
describe a key term of our license, such as BY, NC, ND, SA, Sampling,
Sampling Plus and Noncommercial Sampling Plus may only be used in the
context of pointing to a Creative Commons license on the Creative
Commons server that includes that license term or to otherwise
describe the Creative Commons license, that includes that license term
and that applies to a particular work."


So, that particular artwork may only be used to drive traffic to their site. 
Sounds awfully Microsoft-y to me.

--McD

[Karen Schneider]

>  "Creative Commons License Buttons: The Creative Commons buttons
> that
>  describe a key term of our license, such as BY, NC, ND, SA, Sampling,
>  Sampling Plus and Noncommercial Sampling Plus may only be used in the
>  context of pointing to a Creative Commons license on the Creative
>  Commons server that includes that license term or to otherwise
>  describe the Creative Commons license, that includes that license term
>  and that applies to a particular work."
>
>
>  So, that particular artwork may only be used to drive traffic to their site.
>  Sounds awfully Microsoft-y to me.
>  
(Emerging from lurkdom) I was surprised by this message and wonder if
Creative Commons as a project really wants that as an outcome. They
may not have factored in circumstances that would make that clause
difficult to implement.



-- 
-- 
| Karen G. Schneider
| Community Librarian
| Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts"
| Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712
| kgs(a)esilibrary.com
| Web: http://www.esilibrary.com

[John J. McDonough]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Karen Schneider" <kgs(a)esilibrary.com&gt;
To: "For participants of the Documentation Project" 
<fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:19 AM
Subject: Re: CC license logos/buttons


> > "Creative Commons License Buttons: The Creative Commons
> buttons that
> > describe a key term of our license, such as BY, NC, ND, SA, Sampling,
> > Sampling Plus and Noncommercial Sampling Plus may only be used in the
> > context of pointing to a Creative Commons license on the Creative
> > Commons server that includes that license term or to otherwise
> > describe the Creative Commons license, that includes that license term
> > and that applies to a particular work."
> >
> >
> > So, that particular artwork may only be used to drive traffic to their 
> > site.
> > Sounds awfully Microsoft-y to me.
> >
>
>  (Emerging from lurkdom) I was surprised by this message and wonder if
>  Creative Commons as a project really wants that as an outcome. They
>  may not have factored in circumstances that would make that clause
>  difficult to implement.
>  
If an organization is all about licensing, it must be just chock full of 
lawyers.  I suspect that you are right, they did some obvious lawyer-speak 
without really thinking through the appearances.

--McD

[Eric Christensen]

On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 09:14, John J. McDonough<wb8rcr(a)arrl.net> wrote:
>  ----- Original Message ----- From: "Eric Christensen"
>  <eric(a)christensenplace.us&gt;
>  To: "For participants of the Documentation Project"
>  <fedora-docs-list(a)redhat.com&gt;
>  Cc: <tcallawa(a)redhat.com>; <pchestek(a)redhat.com&gt;
>  Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:04 AM
>  Subject: Re: CC license logos/buttons
>
>
>
>  "Creative Commons License Buttons: The Creative Commons buttons that
>  describe a key term of our license, such as BY, NC, ND, SA, Sampling,
>  Sampling Plus and Noncommercial Sampling Plus may only be used in the
>  context of pointing to a Creative Commons license on the Creative
>  Commons server that includes that license term or to otherwise
>  describe the Creative Commons license, that includes that license term
>  and that applies to a particular work."
>
>
>  So, that particular artwork may only be used to drive traffic to their site.
>  Sounds awfully Microsoft-y to me.
>
>  --McD 
Well, it sounds more like a "replacement" for the license text itself.
 Either you use the text or you use the image as a link to the text.

--Eric

[Karen Schneider]

>  Well, it sounds more like a "replacement" for the license
> text itself.
>   Either you use the text or you use the image as a link to the text.
>
>  --Eric
>  
Or, you use both, which you can't actually do according to the
licensing terms in an actual print book (because you can't link from
the logo--well, except maybe on a Kindle? :) ), but is probably not
what was intended by the project per se.

Logically, in a book, the logo out of context would be a bit
meaningless anyway (unless you footnote it... and I don't want to
imagine a world with footnoted logos), but the rule was obviously
designed around an online presence, and then heavily lawyered.


-- 
-- 
| Karen G. Schneider
| Community Librarian
| Equinox Software Inc. "The Evergreen Experts"
| Toll-free: 1.877.Open.ILS (1.877.673.6457) x712
| kgs(a)esilibrary.com
| Web: http://www.esilibrary.com

[Karsten Wade]

On Fri, Aug 07, 2009 at 09:41:02AM -0400, Karen Schneider wrote:
>  > Well, it sounds more like a "replacement" for the
> license text itself.
>  >  Either you use the text or you use the image as a link to the text.
>  >
>  > --Eric
>  >
>  
>  Or, you use both, which you can't actually do according to the
>  licensing terms in an actual print book (because you can't link from
>  the logo--well, except maybe on a Kindle? :) ), but is probably not
>  what was intended by the project per se.
>  
>  Logically, in a book, the logo out of context would be a bit
>  meaningless anyway (unless you footnote it... and I don't want to
>  imagine a world with footnoted logos), but the rule was obviously
>  designed around an online presence, and then heavily lawyered. 
They also seem to be treating them like protected marks
(cf. trademarks.)  They are very restrictive rules, but a summary
could be, "You cannot use our logos to refer or mean anything other
than what we say they mean."  Just as Fedora's trademark enforcement
won't allow someone to put the FEDORA logo on a canned meat product,
the CC restrictions also won't allow that.

- Karsten, IANAL etc.
-- 
Karsten 'quaid' Wade, Community Gardener
http://quaid.fedorapeople.org
AD0E0C41