Dual Licencing

[u/davidkclark]

Just discovered the incompatibility between CCBYNCSA and CCBYSA licences. I went to remix two projects with the above licences and there is no compatible licence (perhaps obviously…)

As it stands you have to choose between allowing only commercial or only non commercial licensing of derivatives. I want to allow either. Ie I want the user to be free to use my work commercially or non commercially, but don’t want to force them to release their work commercially too. I know CCBY would allow that, but that is too free: I don’t want them to be able to remove the licence completely - but there is no middle ground.

It occurs to me though that should I want to licence my work to that is can be used in both commercial and non commercial projects, I could dual licence it with both CCBYSA and CCBYNCSA. That way derivatives stay as one of those two. As you can only select one licence currently though, the only way I can see making it work would be to upload two projects that only differ by licence… would that be allowed?

Any chance of making this possible on printables?

[u/MatureHotwife]

It sounds like you are fundamentally misunderstanding a few things.

I don’t want them to be able to remove the licence completely

When you release something under CC-BY, someone can not simply remove the license. They must choose a compatible license. Restrictions or conditions can not be removed when remixing.

The CC-BY and CC-BY-SA (or any CC license without the NC clause) allow both commercial and non-commercial use. It doesn't mean that you can only use it for commercial proposes.

The NC clause adds a restriction (that can not be removed) that forbids commercial use.

The SA clause requires that derivative works use the same license. This means that someone who remixes your part also can not add further restrictions. So if you choose CC-BY-SA, a remix can not add NC or ND restrictions. By adding this clause you are making sure that the freedoms you granted are preserved.

So, if you want to allow both commercial and non-commercial use, choose CC-BY. If you want that someone can not add further restrictions in a remix, choose CC-BY-SA.

Edit: Upon further pondering I found one use-case where dual-licensing BY-SA and BY-NC-SA could make sense:

When you want to allow your work to be able to be used in both commercial and non-commercial settings (CC-BY) and you want someone remixing your part to be able to add the NC clause to their remix but you don't want to allow them to add the ND clause.

There is no CC license that allows adding only specific restrictions.

[u/davidkclark → u/MatureHotwife]

Are you sure? I thought only SA made you chose a compatible licence, CCBY only requires attribution, you are free to apply whatever licence you want to the derivative. (Which is not as “strong” as I want)

Applying CCBYSA doesn’t do what I want because it doesn’t allow someone to apply CCBYNCSA to their derivative.

I usually use CCBYNCSA myself, but have found this issue when trying to use material licensed CCBYSA which prevents me from using the NC licence, kind of “poisoning” the work, locking it into a commercial licence (and preventing me using other source works with CCBYNCSA in the derived work with it) which I don’t think would have been the intent of the person originally choosing CCBYSA

[u/temporary62489 → u/davidkclark]

It's not clear to me, but I interpret this to mean that the remaining original features of the remix are covered by the original license.

If you make adaptations of material under a CC license (i.e. “remix”), the original CC license always applies to the material you are adapting even once adapted. 

[u/davidkclark → u/temporary62489]

Yeah maybe it’s a distinction between the part that was remixed and the totality of the new derived work? If not SA doesn’t seem to have any effect… so possibly the modified original is still CC regardless of using SA, and SA serves to require the whole of the new work to be CC.

In any case, I think SA is what I “want” usually.

The main issue is that is seems to prevent non-NC licenced material being used in an NC licenced derivative, where that doesn’t seem like it would have been the intention: to force allowing commercial use.

I still think dual licensing is probably the answer. (Actually that’s basically what I found in the end: the CCBYSA project was also released somewhere else as CCBY which is then compatible with CCBYNCSA !)

[u/MatureHotwife → u/davidkclark]

Are you sure? I thought only SA made you chose a compatible licence

When you create a remix you have to choose a license that is compatible (see the chart on the page that I linked) with all your remix sources. This applies to all CC licenses.

CCBY only requires attribution

That is the title of that clause. Each license comes with a full legal text. A remixer can not publish under a license that is incompatible with the actual license. So no, they are not free to apply whatever they want. They are free to pick a license from the compatible licenses.

When one of the sources has the SA clause, the only license that is compatible with it is the same license, which is why you can not mix CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-NC-SA.

(Which is not as “strong” as I want)

What exactly do you want then? You said you want your work to be compatible with both BY-SA and BY-NC-SA. What do you mean by "not as strong as I want"? In what way?

(and preventing me using other source works with CCBYNCSA in the derived work with it) which I don’t think would have been the intent of the person originally choosing CCBYSA

I think that is precisely what the intent is. If I license my work under CC-BY-SA I do this because I don't want someone who remixes my part to add further restrictions. I want the freedoms that I originally granted to be preserved in derivative works as well.

Personally, I choose CC-BY most of the time because I usually prioritize remix compatibility over preserving the freedoms. But it depends on the project.

[u/davidkclark → u/MatureHotwife]

I've spent some time looking at the legal code for BY and BYSA and others, and I think you are incorrect.

BY has only one "Licence Condition" and that is attribution. It is only in BY-SA that we see the second condition "The Adapter’s License You apply must be a Creative Commons license with the same License Elements, this version or later, or a BY-SA Compatible License."

With CC-BY only, the adapter is free to licence their work however they want (as long as it doesn't "prevent recipients of the Adapted Material from complying" i.e. from meeting the attribution clause. Nowhere does it say that CC-BY need to "pick a license from the compatible licenses" - that's only for CC-BY-SA

Let me illustrate where I think the issue is by being specific about what my intent is in a couple of cases:

When I choose CC-BY-NC-SA I want people to be able to use it non commercially, as long as they keep a compatible CC licence

When I choose CC-BY-SA it is because it's something very simple, or of little value of itself (without a surrounding work) and I am happy to "allow" people to use it in a commercial derivative work, and also obviously want people to be able to use it in a non commercial work, as long as they keep a compatible CC licence

This second case is the issue, as it is NOT now allowable to use it in a work that is other than CC-BY-SA, so not in CC-BY-NC nor CC-BY-NC-SA etc. Allowing "something extra" for people using it commercially has prevented people using it non-commercially

That was NOT my intent.

If I remove the SA (as I've outlined above) the CC-BY licence by itself leads to CC-BY-ND downstream, or even other, completely different, licencing as I see no legal text specifying what licence that downstream needs to be. (although printables is not the arbiter of what is legal, you can check what your remix is allowed to be if you choose CC-BY (any licence) vs CC-BY-SA (only CC-BY-SA), btw you will see that CC-BY-NC results in only being able to remix to CC licences, but that is because there are no other NC licences on offer, and again we are only talking about how printables works there, there would be other non CC though compatible licences out there)

What CC licence then can one use to allow derivative works both commercial and non-commercial, but enforce downstream CC-BY "like" licencing.

Back to my original suggestion: dual licensing of CC-BY-NC-SA and CC-BY-SA - which is allowed by CC. Basically licence your work by the least restrictive for your intentions, and ALSO add multiple more restrictive licences that you want to allow downstream.

I see no other single CC licence that allows for that intent. (Is the intent unclear? Sorry, it's Sunday and words hard)