[License-discuss] MakeHuman, CC0 and AGPL

[Diane Peters]

It's the former if you're using CC0. The work itself -- in whatever form
and whatever the number of copies -- is placed as nearly as possible in the
public domain. You could try to enforce a license on a particular copy, but
you can't enforce it as a matter of copyright and related rights (as
defined in CC0).

Diane M. Peters
General Counsel, Creative Commons
Portland, Oregon
http://creativecommons.org/staff#dianepeters
13:00-21:00 UTC


On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 9:12 AM, Lindsay Patten <blindsaypatten at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thank you for your quick response!
>
> Can you clarify whether you can you put a copy of a work in the public
> domain while maintaining a license on another copy?  Or is it the work
> itself that is placed in the public domain, and any ability to enforce
> copyright on any copies has been surrendered?  My understanding was that
> works are placed in the public domain while copies are licensed, and that
> placing a work in the public domain renounces any copyright claim you might
> have on any copies regardless of what license they may have been previously
> released under.  You seem to be saying that a particular copy of a work can
> be placed in the public domain while other copies remain under copyright
> restrictions?
>
> With regard to bundled exports, it would help me to look at a concrete
> case.  Say we have an export from MakeHuman that consists of three files
>
> 1) A 3D mesh that was created starting with a 3D mesh that comes with
> MakeHuman and transformed by the user using MakeHuman.
>
> 2) A meta-data file containing information about the character and its
> appearance created by the user using MakeHuman
>
> 3) A texture in the form of an image file from the MakeHuman collection of
> texture images.
>
> Let's say the user chooses to take the CC0 option.  What is the copyright
> status of the three files?  Are all three files now in the public domain?
> Can the user, or a third party use the individual files without being
> restricted by the AGPL license that would apply if the CC0 option hadn't
> been taken?  Or is it only the particular combination of the three that is
> in the public domain while the individual files are still under copyright?
> If it is only the combination that is in the public domain, does it revert
> to AGPL if you make any modifications?
>
> Thanks again.
>
> On 2017-10-25 11:04 AM, John Cowan wrote:
>
>
>
> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 9:30 AM, Lindsay Patten <blindsaypatten at gmail.com>
> wrote:.
>>
>> My understanding of CC0 is that it is a declaration that you have placed
>> the work in the public domain, with a fallback license in case the law in a
>> particular jurisdiction doesn't permit that.  If the user takes the CC0
>> option, what is the status of the individual assets that are bundled into
>> the export?  Are they in the public domain or still copyrighted by the
>> MakeHuman authors?
>>
> Those particular copies are effectively in the public domain, provided
> that the MakeHuman folks actually hold copyright.  Third party copyrights
> are of course unaffected.
>
>> What I find confusing is whether CC0 is a license that can be applied to
>> a particular copy of a work,
>>
> Every license is applicable only to particular copies.  The self-same
> bunch of bits may have a commercial license for one copy that permits
> certain acts and forbids others, and a GPL license on another copy which
> has completely different conditions from the commercial license.  As long
> as the licensor is the owner, that's just fine.  SImilarly, bits inside an
> executable that have been compiled from a BSD source are (at least
> arguably) under the GPL if other bits in the same executable come from
> GPLed source.
>
> --
> John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> The whole of Gaul is quartered into three halves.
>         --Julius Caesar
>
>
>
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