Copyright Law + Creative Commons

[tonal1]

I'm having some trouble figuring out how to handle posting images online under a Creative Commons license (The CC forum is almost useless). I want to make images available online for free distribution, but I want to retain certain rights. The CC license does have an option for non commercial only...

..basically, I want to license a specific instance of an image, at a given resolution. Essentially, I want to limit the license to the supplied resolution so as to retain printable rights/resolution for myself.

My unanswered question is whether offering a license on a small image would erode my exclusive rights to a larger resolution of the same image. For instance, could someone scan a print of mine and then say that the CC license applied to that image and not just the "instance" of the image supplied under the CC license?

I hope that makes sense.

 

[antiquark]

"(c) 2010 tonal1. All Rights Reserved."

Then people will have to ask to use your image. You can let them use it for free, on a case-by-case basis. When that happens, usually you see "image courtesy of..."

Or you can say, "sorry, I don't much care about your organization, you can't use it."

Don't bother with that creative commons stuff, you can still make your images free if you have copyright.

 

[tonal1]

"(c) 2010 tonal1. All Rights Reserved."

Then people will have to ask to use your image. You can let them use it for free, on a case-by-case basis. When that happens, usually you see "image courtesy of..."

Or you can say, "sorry, I don't much care about your organization, you can't use it."

Don't bother with that creative commons stuff, you can still make your images free if you have copyright.

That all makes a lot of sense. The only thing is, I have some images that I would like to promote the free use of, and my thought was that a CC type license would make it much easier for people by removing any need to write for permission...

 

[Paul_C]

Write up the license terms yourself and make the pictures available under them. You're not limited in any way to canned licenses like CC, or to making people request license individually.

 

[tonal1]

Write up the license terms yourself and make the pictures available under them. You're not limited in any way to canned licenses like CC, or to making people request license individually.

That would be fine, but it sounds like something that would be best written by a lawyer. The "canned" licenses have the obvious benefit of having been thoroughly reviewed and tested. Plus, if it could work out, I would rather support CC.

 

[antiquark]

My unanswered question is whether offering a license on a small image would erode my exclusive rights to a larger resolution of the same image. For instance, could someone scan a print of mine and then say that the CC license applied to that image and not just the "instance" of the image supplied under the CC license?

So for example, you would have a 640x480 image as CC, but a 3000x2000 of the same image would be a regular copyright?

Just my opinion, but you'd probably have to stick to the same license for all resolutions. Otherwise you might have people taking the CC version and up-rezzing it to 3000x2000 using Genuine Fractals, or you'll have people using the (c) version and saying they're using the CC version. It will be hard, maybe impossible, to tell the difference in the field.

A good idea might be to take two slightly different pictures (similar, yet distinguishable) and make one CC and the other (c). That way it's easier to figure out if there's been a licensing violation.

 

[tonal1]

So for example, you would have a 640x480 image as CC, but a 3000x2000 of the same image would be a regular copyright?

Just my opinion, but you'd probably have to stick to the same license for all resolutions. Otherwise you might have people taking the CC version and up-rezzing it to 3000x2000 using Genuine Fractals, or you'll have people using the (c) version and saying they're using the CC version. It will be hard, maybe impossible, to tell the difference in the field.

A good idea might be to take two slightly different pictures (similar, yet distinguishable) and make one CC and the other (c). That way it's easier to figure out if there's been a licensing violation.

That's basically what I meant. It does seem like a slippery slope.

Your idea about making slightly different versions is interesting... might not work for every image, but a possibility.

I'm not too concerned with casual copyright violations.... say a high res image showing up in a not for profit or student publication. The use of a non commercial only CC license would seem to protect the images from flagrant abuse, like a commercial wall poster for instance.

A scenario like you describe—"up-rezzing"—is the type of event I'm trying to anticipate and avoid. An ambiguous situation like that would probably be cost prohibitive to fight legally.... and if you don't fight it I believe you open the door a bit. It would be difficult to prove that this "up-rezzing" was a violation of the "non derivative" aspect of the CC license too.

Then again, if it's purely a non commercial license there would not be a great deal of incentive to do such a thing.

 

[tonal1]

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/