From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:41:45 -0500

By the same token, the CC_BY license removes ANY control the author
might otherwise have over the quality of a translation. The "moral
rights" provision of CC licenses MIGHT be invoked to prevent
distribution of an egregiously bad translation, which could reflect
poorly on the "honor and reputation" of the author, but it is unlikely
to succeed against merely a poor translation. At least some authors
care about how their works are presented in other languages and have
concerns about nuances of meaning and the like.

The objections stated here to the CC-BY-NC-SA license are at least
questionable as to the interpretation of what is "commercial" since
the license does not define that term other than to provide this
partial clarification:

> 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. The exchange of the Work for other copyrighted works by means of digital file-sharing or otherwise shall not be considered to be intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation, provided there is no payment of any monetary compensation in con-nection with the exchange of copyrighted works.

This paragraph even adds to the ambiguity by highlighting the term
"primary"  and by failing to specify whom the "commercial advantage or
private monetary compensation" is supposed to benefit.  It could be
plausibly interpreted to mean that unless the author of the work
benefits monetarily in some direct way, the reuse is to be deemed
"noncommercial." The example given here of web sites that use
advertising as their means of support might therefore not disqualify
posting of an article as "commercial" because the author receives no
monetary benefit.  The same would be true for the example of
translation, which is not "commercial" in any way that benefits the
author.

I would be interested to know on what authority Mr. Kiley bases his
interpretations of the license. There is nothing in the license itself
that unambiguously supports his interpretation, as far as I can see.

Sandy Thatcher


> From: "Kiley, Robert" <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 12:32:23 +0100
>
> Heather, I strongly disagree with your assertion that an "NC" licence
> is better than the CC-BY licence.
>
> Let me give you a couple of examples where the "NC" licence has the
> potential to limit what others can do with the research we have
> funded.
>
> Translation example
>
> **
> We publish a lot of research on malaria.  It is possible that someone
> may wish to take a number of these papers and translate them into,
> say, Burmese so the information can be understood and applied in the
> local context.  The organisation doing the translation however, may
> wish to charge for this "value added" service.  For articles published
> under the NC licence, this would not be possible.
>
> I fully understand that some users may not be able to afford the
> value-added translation, but I fail to see how they are any worse off
> (as they can still access the original research in its original
> language.)  However, others may be able to afford it and thus reap the
> benefits of the value-added service.
>
> Posting research on another web site
>
> **
> To maximise the impact of the research we fund we want people to be
> able to find it and use this content.  As such, if someone wants to
> take an article (which reported the outcome of Trust-funded research)
> and post it on another web site we believe that this this should be
> possible (as long as the work is properly attributed).  However, if
> that other web site carried any form of advertising then that would
> almost certainly be construed as "commercial", and the publisher could
> ask for that article to be taken down.
>
> More generally, advertising is now commonplace in an environment that
> encourages open information like never before:  the Wiki community,
> blogs and, analogously, open source software sources, all generate
> revenue from advertising in order to encourage sharing and
> dissemination of the free content.
>
> The bottom line of this is that we want to maximise the availability
> and use of research outputs in order to achieve greatest health/public
> benefit, and believe that the CC-BY licence provides the best
> mechanism for achieving this.
>
> Consequently, in line with the draft RCUK policy, the Wellcome Trust
> will also be requiring a CC-BY licence when it pays an OA publication
> fee.  We are currently working through the implementation of this
> measure and will make full details available to our publishing
> colleagues in due course.
>
> Best regards
> Robert
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Heather Morrison <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:06:00 -0700
>
> Some open access advocates insist on a narrow definition of open
> access as equivalent to the Creative Commons Attribution-Only license.
> Jan Velterop recently made this point in Liblicense under the thread
> Predatory Open Access Journals in CHE:
> http://listserv.crl.edu/wa.exe?A2=ind1203&L=LIBLICENSE-L&F=&S=&P=62827
>
> As a long term open access activist and scholar, I have given this
> matter quite a bit of thought. With all due respect to my OA advocate
> colleagues, I do not believe that CC-BY is the best option even for
> strong (libre) forms of open access, and I would argue for a broader,
> more inclusive definition at any rate. In brief, my view is that while
> CC-BY superficially appears to be the expression of the BOAI
> definition of open access, in practice it has weaknesses that are
> problematic for open access. For this reason, it is my opinion that
> the best CC license for libre open access is Creative Commons
> Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike (CC-BY-NC-SA), as this protects
> open access downstream. I recognize that the current CC-NC definition
> is overly broad and hence problematic. However, I argue that the
> solution is for CC to improve the license rather than abandoning the
> noncommercial option.
>
> One of the reasons why I think CC-BY-NC-SA is actually a better fit
> with BOAI than CC-BY is because it would be more effective to achieve
> the vision of BOAI, e.g. "the sharing of the poor with the rich and
> the rich with the poor" than CC-BY. That is, CC-BY allows for the
> creation of for-pay derivatives that the CC-BY author (or their
> family, community, or country) could not afford. This would in effect
> be a one-way sharing of the poor with the rich. For this reason, I
> always recommend the use of NC for open access authors and publishers
> in the developing world.
>
> My argument is presented in more detail in the third chapter of my
> draft dissertation, which can be found here:
> http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/open-thesis-draft-introduction-march-2011/
> (search for open access and creative commons)
>
> While I argue that CC-BY-NC-SA is the best available license for the
> strongest form of open access, I also argue for a broader, more
> inclusive definition of open access. Free to read online with no other
> rights is a tremendous improvement over toll access that people cannot
> afford. One of Willinsky's most basic points in The Access Principle
> is exactly this broad, inclusive approach to open access. Authors,
> publishers, universities and research funders around the world work in
> many different contexts and it is not clear that there is a single
> approach that actually makes sense for everyone. Some publishers and
> journals work in areas where research funding is relatively plentiful
> and the grant amounts generally large enough to cover article
> processing fees. In other areas of scholarship, funding is less
> frequent and less generous. Some journals in these areas may be just
> barely covering costs with their subscriptions revenue and reluctant
> to move to full, immediate, libre open access for valid reasons. When
> these journals choose partial OA measures such as free access to back
> issues, that is a very fine thing. If we wish these journals to move
> to stronger forms of open access, I would suggest that it would be
> appropriate to find means of helping them figure out economic
> solutions to support a transition. If their chosen model is
> problematic, we should point this out and explain what the problem is.
> For example, Elsevier's Sponsored Articles is an expensive option
> which is essentially a copyright transfer to the publisher which
> leaves the author with
>
> In my blogspot, Articulating the Commons, I I argue that we do not yet
> have a complete answer to the question of how best to share our works,
> and that rather than rushing to find a solution, it would be optimal
> to open up a discussion to take place over many decades, around the
> world, involving as many people who are interested and willing to
> contribute, and taking into account a wide variety of perspectives,
> including non-western perspectives.
> http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2011/12/articulating-commons-leaderful-approach.html
>
> This topic has generated some lively discussion recently on the SPARC
> Open Access Forum, the open science list, scholcomm, and google's G+,
> in case anyone wishes to delve into the details of the debates.
>
> best,
>
> Heather Morrison, MLIS