What is the general view on what is meant by “non-commercial use” in the CC licenses – does it just bar receiving hard cash as a result of use of the licensed materials or can other unquantifiable benefits to you or your organisation be classed as commercial use? I had read (on a blog somewhere) that CC were going to look at this (early 2008) and may be redefine or offer more clarification on the meaning. Does anyone know any more on this? thanks – look forward to hearing your views
The CC license tells the licensee (ie, the user who downloads a member’s CC-licensed content) what that user can do with that content. The non-commercial clause in the CC license reads as follows: 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.
That would suggest using the term primarily means unquatifiable benefits aren’t covered. However, I’m not a lawyer… :)
This video contains discussion of the interpretation of noncommercial (long video – its about 40 mins in) and in short there is no definitive definition of non-commercial as there aren’t many examples of case law to clarify – so we have nothing new from the video on this point but good to hear it direct from CCLearn
check it out: http://tinyurl.com/4xkymp
