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CC Licenses

ATTRIBUTION (BY) ATTRIBUTION SHARE ALIKE (BY SA)

Apart from requiring references to the author(s), Just like BY, this CC variant allows all kinds of re-use
rights holder(s), source of the work and the license and editing, even for commercial purposes. Ho-
text itself, this CC variant puts no further restrictions wever, all edited versions of the work (derivatives)
on the user. She can use the work freely and edit it must, if they are published or distributed, be availa-
in any thinkable way. Therefore, using the work in ble under this very same license.
remixes and mashups is allowed.

Only these two license variants are certified to be free licenses in the meaning of freedomdefined.org and are thus suitable
to make sure works licensed under stay re-usable.

ATTRIBUTION This CC variant does not allow

NO DERIVATIVES the work to be edited. Com-
mercial uses are allowed.

All CC variants above can be combined with the NC module (for non-commercial use only; commercial
use requires additional approval). This leads to six possible CC variants altogether, this being the additi-
onal three:

Theres an additional legal tool called CC0 (CCzero) for setting a work free without any
specific conditions. CC0 thus is a complete waiver of copyright and related rights.. This
is meant to help creatives to voluntarily place works in the Public Domain. According to Creative Com-
mons, this tool is especially suitable for databases.
Preface

All around the world an increasing number of people uses the public licenses offered by Creative
Commons (CC) to free up the results of their creativity for re-use by others. Also projects, institutions
and initiatives ever more often decide to subscribe to the CC motto: Some rights reserved. One of
the most popular examples for this is the Wikimedia Foundation, who together with its worldwide
community of activists in 2008 decided to license its universal encyclopedia Wikipedia under the CC
license BY SA Attribution Share-Alike.

This license is only one of six licenses in CCs suite of core licenses. The most widely used licenses
from this set in their names show the additional abbreviation NC for non-commercial use only.
Many licensors who intuitively choose such an NC license do so with the understandable intention to
prevent their works from being unwantedly and uncontrollably exploited by others for business. The
many other consequences of this choice, however, are usually unknown. This brochure by Wikimedia
Germany, Creative Commons Germany and iRights.info is meant to address this lack of knowledge.
We are looking forward to comments and suggestions regarding this endeavour and hope that it will
yield many aha experiences.

Special thanks go to the Open Knowledge Foundation Germany who supported and facilitated the
English translation of the original text.

John H. Weitzmann
CC DE Legal Project Lead
CONTENT

PREFACE ............................................................................................................................. 3
introduction ................................................................................................................ 5

1 What do we understand by Open Content? ........................................................... 6

2 Why is content placed under a CC license? ........................................................... 8
3 Why are there different CC licenses? ........................................................................ 9
4 How does the NC module affect the way content can be distributed? ................ 10
5 What is commercial use?.......................................................................................... 11
6 Can a CC license with the NC module prevent that my content is used
by radicals or extremists?.......................................................................................... 12
7 I want to keep my content accessible through CC licensing. Is the NC module
the only option to prevent the appropriation of my content through commercial
enterprises?................................................................................................................ 13
8 Can NC-LICENSED content be used in the Wikipedia project?............................ 14
9 Can you release NC-licensed content specifically and separately for Wikipedia
despite the NC restrictions? ..................................................................................... 15

10 Does the NC module prevent commercial usage? ................................................ 15
11 Am I ready to act against the commercial use of my content? ............................. 16
12 Can NC-licensed content be printed in newspapers? ........................................... 16
13 Can NC-licensed content be used in schools, training and universities?.............. 17
14 How do you classify NC-licensed content that is first used in school,
but later outside of school? .................................................................................... 17

15 How does NC affect mashups? Not all CC licenses can be combined
with each other. ........................................................................................................ 18

16 Can a third party commercial usage benefit the author?...................................... 19
17 Can a user of CC licensed content create the outward impression that the author
endorses the particular usage?................................................................................ 20
18 Can the NC module still have any advantages?...................................................... 20
19 Which is the license Wikipedia content is published under?................................ 21

IMPRINT ............................................................................................................................ 23
Introduction

With the Creative Commons licenses, creatives Within the different modules of the Creative
are offered simple means to free up their works Commons licenses, especially the restriction NC
in a way that allows the public to use them. In noncommercial use only is very popular
a time where knowledge becomes ever more im- with the authors. A commercial usage is not allo-
portant for individual development and that of wed under this condition. However, deciding on
society, the creative commons and knowledge a license that does not allow commercial use has
commons gain in importance. Part of the know- extensive consequences: Many possibilities of use,
ledge commons are all works created by humani- like the inclusion in knowledge communities and
ty that are freely accessible and re-usable. Only archives, the Wikipedia, local newspapers, publi-
through commons is safeguarded that all humans cations, compilations and mashups, are in fact
obtain equal chances when it comes to accessing excluded and thus require additional approval
information, education and knowledge. and that despite the fact that these inclusions are
often wanted by the authors.
Many creatives want to take part in establishing
modern knowledge societies. They do not want This booklet will explain all consequences of
to keep all rights reserved quite the contrary: choosing a CC license variant restricted to non-
They have an interest in seeing their works used commercial use only (NC). Often enough, the
by many. This is assisted in particular by the op- intended effects that are aimed for by selecting
portunities the Internet offers in distributing and the NC module can just as well be achieved by
exchanging knowledge and information in an un- other means. In some cases, the NC module is
precedented manner. completely unsuited to achieve the effects inten-
ded by the author. On the other hand, its use has
Creative Commons (CC) is the best known set of extensive, often unwanted consequences on the
tools to release own content. However, not every possibilities of distribution of content. The deci-
CC license is alike. A strong point of CC is to sion to apply the NC module need therefore be
give creatives the opportunity to frame the usa- carefully considered.
ge conditions that are most important to them.
The user (the public) obtains only certain rights,
while the remaining rights stay with the author
or rights holder of the work. This is achieved by
means of building blocks of different licensing
modules.

5
Imagine a world in which every
1
single human being can freely What do we understand by
share in the sum of all knowledge. Open Content?
Thats our commitment. Content that can be used
freely.
Wikimedia Foundation

Open Content is content that is open and

freely accessible by default, not only after an
author has given individual permission. This is
not a matter of course. Copyright law assumes
that content may only be distributed and used
when the owner of these rights explicitly allows
it. However, to use this ground rule in the di-
gital age is becoming more and more questio-
nable. Human culture has always been shaped
by the drive to enhance the existing. Everyone
builds on that which others have created.

Digital content can be reproduced and used as

easily as never before. Therefore, that which is
technically possible should be rendered possib-
le by law. The ideal of free knowledge, always
accessible to everybody, needs a legal basis that
applies smoothly to the context of the Internet.
Scientists in particular have highlighted the
large potential of the Internet and the free ex-
change of knowledge. In 2003, German scienti-
fic organizations demanded in the Declaration
of Berlin free access to scientific works:

Our mission of disseminating knowledge is

only half complete if the information is not
made widely and readily available to society.

6
The free knowledge universe

There are now many projects that made it their mission to foster and spread free know-
ledge. This graphic shows only a few of them: The online encyclopedia Wikipedia is the
place where its users can collect the knowledge of humanity; Open Access enables exchange
of knowledge in academia; the Open Source Software Community collaborates to develop
software based on openly available code; the Open Knowledge Foundation promotes pub-
lication, use and re-use of open knowledge bases. All this is done by applying free licenses,
of which the Creative Commons Public License (CCPL) and the GNU General Public
License (GPL) are prominent examples.

7
New possibilities of knowledge dissemination in the first place. Instead of the usual principle
not only through the classical form but also and of copyright law, where all rights are reserved by
increasingly through the open access paradigm the author, the use of these licenses only reser-
via the Internet have to be supported. We de- ves certain rights. The content is made available
fine open access as a comprehensive source of for the public to use.
human knowledge and cultural heritage that
has been approved by the scientific community. Creative Commons is not in conflict with exis-
In order to realize the vision of a global and ting copyright law, but is built on it. Without
accessible representation of knowledge, the fu- copyright law the public release would not even
ture Web has to be sustainable, interactive, and work. Copyright protected content, such as
transparent. Content and software tools must movies, music, texts and images can be freely
be openly accessible and compatible. used through such a license.
In the context of software the Open Source
principle was devised. Open Source means that
the source code of software is freely accessible
to everyone. Open Source was introduced, so
that software developers do not have to be-
2
gin all over again when they are writing new Why is content placed un-
software, but can build on existing works. To
ensure this principle the GNU General Public der a CC license?
License (GPL) was defined. Software under this To make it more usable.
license can be used and extended by everyone.
The Open Source approach in software explicit-
ly allows also commercial use. Its success even
depends to this option by a large amount.
Open Content rests on the same basic idea as Many creatives want their texts, their music or
Open Source software: Written works, movies movies to be used by as many people as possi-
and multimedia works shall also allow to be ble (distribution of works is de jure also a type
used freely. The by far best known option to of usage). They have an interest in the free ex-
license content as Open Content that allows change of information. Especially educational
free use, is the Creative Commons (CC) set of content is created with the aim to reach as many
public licenses. students as possible. In this case, any legal re-
striction is counter-productive. Here, the most
Creative Commons was developed in 2001 as severe restriction of all is to do nothing. What
an initiative of law professor Lawrence Lessig sounds paradox reflects the legal default: All
at Stanford University. It is meant to provide rights reserved. Whoever creates something
comprehensible licenses for the public release new, but does not elaborate if and how his
of content for everybody, and thus further the works can be used, is assumed to say Nobody
cultural commons, or even make them possible is allowed to use my content. The CC licenses

8
therefore provide a simple solution to express
the desire to share and say Everybody is al-
lowed to use my content, under the following
terms and conditions.
3
Why are there different CC
The straightforwardness and comprehensibility
of the CC licenses has contributed greatly to licenses?
their widespread use. They are also legally com- CC licenses reflect the dif-
pliant and adapted internationally to the parti- ferent interests of the au-
cularities of the different legal systems.
People who use CC licenses often do this with thors.
the intent to have their works used in social,
cultural and educational institutions. CC licen-
ses that contain the NC module, which allows Common to all CC license variants is the mind-
only a free, non-commercial use, are often con- set that the usage of content shall be facilitated.
sidered as a counter model to a world where But creatives, authors, directors and musici-
even charitable or not-for-profit institutions are ans do not all have the same understanding of
charged for every single usage. An example for which usage they want to allow of their works.
this are the license fee claims for copying and The six different variants of CC are answering
distributing singing sheets in kindergardens, to these demands. They offer a flexible tool to
which have caused public outrage. However, by tie the usage to certain conditions. A good ex-
existing law, the claims are justified. By applying ample is the question, if the authors want to
a CC license, many authors want to dissociate allow editing and remixing of their works. For
themselves from these practices. The choice of some, it is crucial that their work remains un-
the NC module is often also a statement against changed. These creators can ensure that by ap-
a style of profiteering deemed inappropriate. plying the No Derivatives module (ND for
short), and still allow other uses.
However, not every type of commercial use is
negative. Quite in contrary it is neither amo- Others are interested in having their work used
ral nor detrimental to the community when in remixes, collages and mashups. They consi-
content is also distributed by those who have a der the creation of content merely as a transi-
financial interest. Often, the success of cultural tional stage in a process. Their own content is
and educational work depends highly on exis- based on the older and shall be developed into
ting commercial usages. newer works. Those who assign a CC license
out of this mindset will not choose the No De-
rivatives restriction.

If you hold Open Content principle very dear,

you can express through the Share-Alike mo-

9
dule (SA) that your content may be edited and commercial usages and would not be allowed
distributed, but only under the same (license) when including the NC module.
terms, and thus remains freely accessible.
In the context of education and training, a great
Some creatives may want to exclude the com- number of institutions depend on their own re-
mercial usage of their content. To address this venues, as they are not (to the full extent) pu-
demand, each of the license types can be exten- blicly funded. The dependency on course fees
ded with the module Non-commercial use leads to their classification as commercial. They
only (NC). However, this is not advisable in are therefore not allowed to use content marked
every case, since it restricts many usage rights with a CC license that includes the NC modu-
which may actually be in the interest of the le, at least not without asking for permission of
creator or rights owner of the work. the author.

Even the usage in many blogs becomes illegal

under the NC condition. Many bloggers dis-
4 play advertisements to lower their hosting costs
or have an additional income. Therefore the use
How does the NC module in these blogs is no longer - or at least not un-
ambiguously non-commercial.
affect the way content can
be distributed?

5
NC-licensed content cannot
be distributed as widely and
easily. What is commercial use?
Any use, that is primarily
directed toward commercial
advantage or private moneta-
If you mark your content as NC, it cannot be
included in free knowledge databases like Wi- ry compensation.
kipedia, into open media archives and in Open
Source projects. It is often a commercial use
that allows not-for-profit initiatives which work
for the public good to succeed. The Wikipedia
DVD which was produced commercially by Di- When hearing about commercial use, you would
rectmedia has greatly increased the popularity often think of multinational companies like Mi-
of Wikipedia. The same goes for the inclusion crosoft or Shell, of stock trading, quick money
into commercial repositories both are legally or profiteering. The term commercial use

10
however contains no moral evaluation of the Another approach to distinguish commercial
business conduct of the respective institutions from non-commercial use could be to evaluate
or persons, but merely describes that they are not the specific usage, but the type of user. Then
obtaiting a commercial advantage and possibly you would only have to assess whether the user
aim for a financial remuneration. And that is or institution as a whole can be considered
necessary for anyone who is not fully financed commercial. Public schools and museums could
by public funds or private donations. then be classified as non-commercial based on
their not-for-profit mandate, and one would
It is evidently a commercial usage if a compa- not have to inspect the individual use cases for
ny uses an image or a text on their company their commercial nature. Unfortunately, the
website. It is also commercial use if an image NC module does not make it this easy, since
is printed in a book that is published by a pub- it explicitly mentions the acts that have to be
lishing house, entirely independent of whether non-commercial. Hence we have to assume a
the author receives a remuneration or possibly commercial act if, for example, content is sold
even has to pay a printing fee to make the publi- in a museum shop that is aimed an generating
cation possible. The publishing house acts with revenue, regardless of the legal status of the shop
a commercial interest in either case. and the not-for-profit status of the museum.

A more difficult decision is whether private blogs Completely irrelevant for the distinction bet-
act with commercial interest, if they (or their hos- ween commercial and non-commercial use is,
ting service) display advertisements and achieve whether the user is even financially able to pay
revenues. These revenues are often minimal and license fees, or if they would pay for usage rights
cover barely the hosting costs. There are good in comparable situations. A charitable fund for
arguments against classifying these undertakings example, that uses a picture within their not-
as predominantly aimed at a monetary recom- for-profit mandate, is considered non-com-
pensation, and therefore allows to call them non- mercial under the NC license terms, even if it
commercial. The distinction is difficult though, disposes of considerable means and would pay
and many cases are disputed. To stay with the photographers in a similar situation.
example of the private blog: At which point does
a blog lose its non-commercial nature? Already if But there are very few not-for-profit institutions
the advertisement revenue surpasses the operati- these days that have adequate funding and do
onal costs? Or when the first penny is earned? Or not depend on additional revenues which
only when an appreciable income is generated? again places them into the gray area of our att-
empted distinction. To completely avoid the
This difficult distinction will often lead the party NC module and its restrictions will avoid these
responsible to not make use of CC licensed con- uncertainties.
tent, out of precaution, when the license contains
the NC module. Even where actually the usage
would be acceptable as non-commercial.

11
6 7
Can a CC license with the I want to keep my content
NC module prevent that my accessible through CC licen-
content is used by radicals sing. Is the NC module the
or extremists? only option to prevent the
No. Extremists want to appropriation of my con-
change society, not make tent through commercial
profit. enterprises?
No. There are other options,
such as the Share Alike module.

Radicals and extremists follow a political agen-

da. Their objectives are not necessarily at the
same time commercial, not aimed at a business Am equally effective yet often more efficient pro-
advantage or financial remuneration, but at po- tection against the case that third parties appro-
litical and social changes. Radical political and priate content with financial intent is the Share
religious extremists are often organised in non- Alike (SA) module, which allows publication of
economic associations. Hence, a NC licensing edits only under the same or similar licenses.
can in a way even privilege the usage of content
through extremists. Companies or private actors that want to appro-
priate creative content, can achieve this goal re-
In other terms: A scientist who intends to pub- latively easily by editing the work and restricting
lish a study of political extremism with a publi- the use of the edited version based on the separate
shing house will not be allowed to use the con- new copyright it carries. The Share Alike module
tent, if it is protected by the NC module against in the Creative Commons license set can prevent
commercial use, because the publisher is acting that. All edited versions, if they are used publicly,
with commercial interest. An extremist group, must be published under the same license as the
however, which formally acts as an association original content. This means they remain acces-
is well allowed to use the same content under sible as freely as the original content under the re-
the NC terms. strictions set by CC. Furthermore, where the edit
consists in enhancing own content with freed-
up external CC-SA content, the CC-SA license

12
works in a contagious or viral way: The newly be prohibited for major news sources or other
created work (the edited version) as a whole can commercial websites to use Wikipedia content
only be published under the same license. This verbatim without payment and without asking
alone prevents many companies from appropri- for permission. Wikipedia benefits greatly from
ating free content which is licensed under Share the commercial use of their content. They are
Alike. It would require them to release their own integrated tightly with several search engines,
reproduction, advertisement materials (or whate- which furthers the distribution of Wikipedia
ver the end result is used for) to the public under content, and hence the knowledge compiled by
the same Share Alike license and that is one collaboration. The operation of a search engine
thing most companies, especially larger ones, are is an indubitably commercial enterprise, aimed
not willing to do. at profits.

At the same time the Share Alike module as Another example for commercial usage, that
opposed to the NC module does not have the supports Wikipedia, is the distribution of the
negative effect to generally hinder the distributi- DVD versions of Wikipedia, such as the Ger-
on of content (in blogs for example). Quite the man version produced by the Berlin-based
opposite: Since because of Share Alike all edits company Directmedia. Within short time this
are under a CC license, the edited version can be DVD became a bestseller because of its low
used afterwards not only be the editor, but by any price tag and a software with extended search
third party. functions. A prerequisite for creating a Wiki-
pedia DVD was that Directmedia was able to
use its contents simply because it is allowed by
the license. Furthermore, the project encoura-
8 ged to sort out incomplete articles, so that they
would not end up in the DVD project. Finally,
Can NC-licensed content be the Wikipedians helped to make the data in-
dexable and sortable. In return, Directmedia
used in the Wikipedia pro- donated one Euro per sold DVD to the Wi-
ject? kipedia Germany Foundation and inflated the
No. Wikipedia contents are Wikimedia image archives with a content dona-
tion of 10,000 reproductions of public domain
being used commercially. artworks.

The business concept of the Wikipedia DVD

worked, because the software added new fea-
tures and made the content more attractive, but
One of the reasons for the widespread and in- also because it used a different medium. Even
tense usage of Wikipedia is that its contents if you get to hear often that the difference bet-
may be used commercially. Otherwise it would ween online and offline is fading, the traditio-

13
nal lexicon and reference format of the DVD an additional effort that would suffocate many
appealed to a different target group than the cooperations.
Internet encyclopedia was able to attain. By In May 2005, Wikipedias founder Jimmy
this process, new readers could be interested Wales consequently announced that content,
in Wikipedia. But all of this was a commercial that can only be used non-commercially or can
act, which would not have been permitted if be used based on separate approval only, is not
the license that is used by default in Wikipedia, permitted in Wikipedia and has to be deleted.
would contain the NC module.

10
9 Does the NC module prevent
Can you release NC-licensed commercial usage?
content specifically and Yes, but often in all the
separately for Wikipedia des- wrong places.
pite the NC restrictions?
No. The accessibility rules of
Wikipedia must not become
too complex.
The NC restriction in CC licenses does indeed
prohibit commercial usage, but as any clause
in any legal contract does not in itself guaran-
tee that others abide by this prohibition. Just as
in many other areas of copyright law, breaches
Wikipedia rejects separate side agreements of the restrictions imposed by CC licenses are
just as all other initiatives and projects that common. The NC module is no exception.
work on the free content principles. The rea-
son is that third parties which want to colla- You have to consider that many companies see
borate with Wikipedia would be hindered and breaches of copyright law as a mere financial
harmed. These are for example local initiatives, risk, and may intentionally defy its restrictions.
that want to use Wikipedia content in local Seen from this perspective, the NC module
newspapers, as well as search engines and press hinders exactly those companies and institu-
services wanting to integrate Wikipedia conten. tions that respect copyright law most. That
Each of these would have to pay exact atten- includes public institutions, which cooperate
tion as to which content is freely accessible, and with commercial partners, but also knowledge
which is subject to individual side agreements databases like Wikipedia, open media archives

14
or Open Source projects. All these projects, That does not mean that you have to fight
initiatives and institutions which explicitly en- every single breach of copyright. Breaches of
dorse free access to knowledge, are subject to copyright law are common, and CC licensed
closer scrutiny to not breach the restrictive co- content is no exception and the decision for
pyright regulations. In order not to endanger or agains a legal dispute will always depend on
their work, they have to study license agree- many considerations. However, if you do not
ments with utmost care. If the possibility of a intend in the first place to act against commer-
commercial use happening cannot be ruled out cial use, the NC license variant will only deter
and often this should not be excluded, since those who observe the law meticulously, espe-
these actors are interested in spreading know- cially if they are not perfectly certain that they
ledge content licensed with a NC condition are considered as non-commercial. These are
will not be used by them. usually the users that you do not want to deter.

This creates the paradox that the NC restric-

tions are most minutely heeded where their
consequences are least intended.
12
Can NC-licensed content

11 be printed in newspapers?
No. Newspapers are in any
Am I ready to act against case commercial users.
the commercial use of my
content?
If not, you should consider
not to use the NC module in Newspapers are operated to generate revenue;
the first place. they aim at a commercial advantage and a finan-
cial recompensation. That is a fact irrespective
of the fundamental right of free press and the
great influence of newspapers on public opini-
on and debate. Furthermore, the classification
of newspapers as commercial is valid even when
To restrict a Creative Commons license by me- they are such as in the case of advertisement
ans of the NC module is only sensible if the journals distributed for free. These papers are
author is also willing to act against commercial financed by advertisement, and thus operate for
use, for example in court. a monetary advantage. Of course, a CC licensed
content can be printed in press, despite the NC

15
module, if the author explicitly agrees. That ap- puts educational institutions, that already
plies at the same rate to any other commercial are in a difficult position as they do not have
use. The great advantage of the CC standard sufficient public funding, in further disad-
licenses is, however, that you do not have to ne- vantage, as they can not make use of CC li-
gotiate an agreement in every sincle case. This censed content containing the NC module.
effort-saving effect of standard licensing is lost
if the NC module demands case-by-case nego-
tiations.

14
13 How do you classify NC-li-
censed content that is first
Can NC-licensed content
used in school, but later
be used in schools, training
outside of school?
and universities?
If used outside of school,
No, not everywhere.
the use is often to be consi-
dered commercial.

Depending on the legal status of the provider,

a school, trade school or university can be clas- The use of CC licensed content with the NC
sified either as commercial or non-commercial. module is usually not an issue if it happens
Today, a large number of schools, universities, stritly within public schools. These schools
training centres professional schools, scientific have an educational mandate and do not fol-
and cultural institutes are not exclusively pub- low commercial goals. A different case is that
licly funded and are not exclusively financed by of private schools that do generate revenue (see
donations or foundation capital. These educa- question 13).
tional institutions depend on own revenues. By
this orientation, to generate own revenue, their Therefore, a wide spectrum of possible uses
enterprise is aimed at monetary recompensati- of NC-licensed content is opened within the
on to a dregree that can no longer be considered schools that would otherwise classify as com-
negligible. mercial. Students and professors may print
texts, play songs; Students may - if the No De-
The less public funding an institution gets, rivatives (ND) module is not present to prevent
the higher is the necessity to acquire addi- it create mashups and collages and edit the
tional revenue by commercial means. This content. These actions soon become problema-

16
tic when the results leave the school premises. If
for example the local newspaper wants to report
on the results of a student competition, they
can not just reprint the collage with the CC
15
licensed contents, if the NC module is inclu- How does NC affect
ded. This would require the permission of the
original author. mashups?
Not all CC licenses can be
Since the CC-NC license makes the school a combined with each other.
location of free access to copyrighted content,
many students gain a false sense of security if
they use the same content outside of school. In
this case, the threshold of commercial use is ea-
sily breached. If for example such content is up- Works that are licensed under CC-BY-SA
loaded to social networks on the Internet, the (Attribution, Share-Alike) license can only be
mere possibilty of access through third parties combined with works and then used under a
(for example other people in the social network) common license with works that bear the same
would constitute a breach of the NC module license or the only more free license type CC-
in the license, since the hosters and operators BY (Attribution). The combination of CC-li-
of social networks usuall act with commercial censed content with other combinations of the
interest. Although the actual breach will, in different modules, especially those without NC
these cases, be effected by the respective hoster module, is not permitted.
or operator, these companies usually have clau-
ses in their usage agreements that allow them Thus, severe problems are caused by the fact
to claim recompensation for incurred damages that licenses have to be compatible with each
from their users. other, if you want to combine the contents.
This applies especially to mashups, which origi-
This is one more reason why you should not use nate from a culture of free manipulation of con-
the NC restrictions on content for educational tent, and consider CC licensing as supporting
purposes. Especially students should not be put their cultural values. In fact however, many
into the situation that their unobjectionable license combinations are not compatible, espe-
conduct within school leads to a carelessness cially NC licenses together with other licenses
that puts them in conflict with the law outside that do not have these restrictions.
of school. Now, as a creative professional you
could take up the position that you will not Furthermore, mashups are often created wit-
pursue or hang a lantern on such unwanted hout the intent of financial recompensation,
breaches of your licenses. However, then you which initially makes the use of NC-licensed
should ask yourself why you had to choose the content legitimate. Later, those mashups can
NC module in the first place (see question 11). become popular and are republished in blogs

17
and on other platforms. This puts their makers,
which legitimately used NC-licensed content
when they made the mashup, in a legal gray
area where the usage can be attributed a com-
17
mercial character. Can a user of CC-licensed
content create the outward
impression that the author
16 endorses the particular
usage?
Can a third party
No. A CC-license explicitly
commercial usage benefit
does not suggest endorse-
the author? Yes.
ment.
If you are interested in
distributing your content
widely, you should allow
commercial uses. CC does not affect the personality rights of the
author. A user must not implicitly or explicitly
assert or imply any connection with, sponsor-
ship or endorsement by the CC licensor. This
no endorsement clause, as it is called in the
US, is a standard provision in many open con-
A commercial use is not by definition an ab- tent license models.
usive use. Wherever publicity and attention
for the content are the primary goal, any use
of the content usually benefits the author, as it
increases their popularity. Especially content
that is used in the context of public education
initiatives should be able to make use of every
distribution channel possible, as a maximum
outreach is the primary goal.

18
 However, despite their focus on a business mo-
del that is based on the kind of exclusivity of-
18 fered by classic copyright law, these publishers
can have an interest that their content is at least
Can the NC module still being used in the non-commercial areas of edu-
cation and science, as this may boost sales via
have any advantages? classical distribution.
Yes, but less commonly than
you would think.

19
Which is the license Wiki-
For private individuals, there is usually no good
reason for a restriction to non-commercial use pedia content is published
only. In many cases there is very little realistic under?
prospect that a commercial user is willing to The CC-BY-SA license.
pay money in order to use the content. A CC
license has the main goal to make the content
as widely spread as possible. And in achieving
this the NC module is often a hindrance.
In order to increase the commons of free know-
In turn, anyone who does not have the intenti- ledge and culture, the Wikipedia requires of
on to see the content widespread without strict every author to allow the general public a free
control over it, can achieve this goal by exclu- reuse of their articles. This is achieved by a
ding commercial uses. CC licenses with the NC Creative Commons license with the Attribution
module in them can make sense for publishers, (BY) and Share Alike (SA) modules, meaning
whose business model is based on a traditional that the license requires giving credit to the au-
all rights reserved, who invest considerably in thor and distributing any edited versions under
a publication and hold their own distribution the same terms. Texts that were not created by
channels. Such publishers have no particular the authors themselves, or texts that originated
interest in allowing competitors to gain profit in a collaboration, may also only enter Wikipe-
from their investments. The benefits of com- dia if they are put under a CC-BY-SA license or
mercial use by third parties, namely the better a compatible license.
and more rapid uncontrolled dissemination is
less important for them, because they maintain Up until 2009 the Wikipedia was using the
their own, often costly distribution operations. GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) by
the GNU initiative. The Free Software Found-
ation had originally developed this license for

19
software documentation, hence it was too com- Just as the NC module, the No Derivatives
plicated and not ideally suited for Wikipedia. (ND) module is also not permitted for Wiki-
Nonetheless, the GFDL open content licenses pedia articles. Wikipedia thrives from allowing
did not have to be abandoned when Wikipedia its articles to be corrected, extended and edited
was transitioning to a CC-BY-SA license. The by others. Therefore ND is not compatible with
old license is still used to avoid possible contra- the Wikipedia concept.
dictions. Commercial use of content is explicit-
ly permitted by both licenses. The Share Alike
module ensures that content cannot be taken
from the world-wide pool of freely accessible
knowledge by editing and republishing, but
that it remains a part of free knowledge and free
culture.

Attribution to the author is an important part

of every CC license. This is true for Wikipedia
authors as well. Since the encyclopedic entries
were created by a multitude of authors in colla-
boration, the attribution for Wikipedia articles
should be the following:

Users should attribute in one of the following

fashions ...

- through hyperlink (where possible) or URL

to the Wikipedia article to which you contri-
buted,

- through hyperlink (where possible) or URL

to an alternative, stable online copy that is free-
ly accessible, which conforms with the license,
and which provides credit to the authors in a
manner equivalent to the credit given on the
Project website; or

- through a list of all authors, but please note

that any list of authors may be filtered to exclu-
de very small or irrelevant contributions.

20
imprint

Free Knowledge based on Creative Commons Licenses Responsible for the content of this publication:
Consequences, risks and side-effects of the license Jan Engelmann (Wikimedia Germany)
module non-commercial use only NC Dr. Paul Klimpel (iRights.info)
John H. Weitzmann (CC DE)
Written by Dr. Paul Klimpel
Translated into English by the community via the Layout
Transifex.com platform studio grau, Berlin
Translation revised and edited by John H. Weitzmann
Copyright May 2012 by Wikimedia Germany,
Translation supported and facilitated by: iRights.info, CC DE
Open Knowledge Foundation
Gneisenaustrae 52, 10961 Berlin The text of this brochure is published freely
www.okfn.org under the following Creative Commons licen-
se:
Editorial Team: Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike, Version
Valie Djordjevic, John H. Weitzmann, Philipp Otto 3.0 Unported, (CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported)

Publishers: This license means inter alia:

Wikimedia Germany Association for the Advance- Under the conditions that you attribute to author
ment of Free Knowledge and publisher as P. Klimpel - Publ.: Wikimedia Ger-
Obentrautstr. 72, 10963 Berlin many, iRights.info, CC DE and cite the licenses
www.wikimedia.de name License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Unported and URL
[email protected] (see below), you are free to copy, distribute and use
+49 (0) 30-219 15 826-0 the text of this brochure in any manner, also com-
mercially, whether online, offline or otherwise. Edits
iRights.info All about Rights in the Digital World and derivatives are also allowed under the additional
Almstadtstr. 9/11, 10119 Berlin condition that, if they are published or otherwise dis-
www.irights.info tributed, they be put under the same license as this
[email protected] brochure.
+49 (0) 30 5459 8128
The complete text of the license can be found perma-
Creative Commons Germany nently under the following URL:
c/o EEAR gGmbH and newthinking communica- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/le-
tions GmbH galcode
Graefestr. 59, 10967 Berlin
www.creativecommons.de A simplified explanation of this license can be found
[email protected] here:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

21
 The
public
licenses de-
veloped by Creative
Commons (CC) are tools
to make creative works available
for free use under certain conditions. As
rights holders have different needs and motives,
CC offers six different license variants. Some of the most
popular license variants include the condition that the licensed
works must not be used commercially. This has far-reaching and often
unintended consequences for the dissemination of the respec-
tive works and sometimes even entirely thwarts what the
licensor wants to achieve by choosing a CC license.
This brochure wants to offer information on
consequences, risks and side-effects
of the restrictive CC license
variants that dont al-
low commer-
cial