On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 12:49 PM, Mia <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
As a non-commercial developer who uses any data I can get my hands on,
> an NC (non-commercial) licence isn't a problem for me.
The problem with "non-commercial" is that it's fairly vague, and rules out a
lot of possible uses. The actual wording of the CC-BY-NC licence, for
instance, says you can't use the content in any way if it is "primarily
intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary
compensation".
Does this cover use in advertising, for example? What about if you put ads
around the content (even just to cover costs)? Or if you're doing some other
commercial activity, and your use of the content helps to promote that (even
just through acquiring traffic/users)? What if I set a small charge to cover
costs (eg for a physical product)?
Lots of projects start out non-commercial, but then might become more
commercial (to cover costs, or because an opportunity arises) at a later
point. Wikipedia refuses to use any non-commercial-only content for this
reason - not because they're a commercial organisation - but because they
don't want to place any further burdens on other re-users of their content.
Most museums are commercial entities (with shops, cafes, etc).
In practice, of course, most people tend to assume "non-commercial" as
meaning "it's okay if I'm not selling it or making any significant money out
of this".
Lots of people advise that ShareAlike licences are far better than
NonCommercial licenses - as you either get to make use of whatever value-add
other people do to your content - or users will come to you to arrange a
commercial licensing if they want to use your content without re-licensing
it under ShareAlike.
This is presumably why none of the 4-star ratings (which look great!) of LOD
contain a non-commercial license anyway...
Cheers,
F
--
Frankie Roberto
Experience Designer, Rattle
0114 2706977
http://www.rattlecentral.com
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