[License-discuss] MakeHuman, CC0 and AGPL

[Diane Peters]

"CC0 is both a public domain dedication and a license.  If the dedication
is effective, then it affects all the manifestations (on a website or a
CD/DVD-ROM) and copies.  If it is not, then the permissive license affects
only the copies it is attached to."


The final sentence is incorrect, at least in terms of how CC licenses
operate. If the expression is licensed under a CC license (or the CC0 back
up license, as described here), then that license is available to anyone
who reuses that expression as a matter of copyright and the closely related
rights as defined in CC0 or the CC license.

On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 6:26 PM, John Cowan <cowan at ccil.org> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Oct 25, 2017 at 12:12 PM, Lindsay Patten <blindsaypatten at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> 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?
>>
> I oversimplified.  A work in the copyright sense is really an expression
> of the abstract work.  Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is an abstraction
> existing in people's minds (originally only Beethoven's mind) and not in
> itself subject to copyright, whereas each draft of it that he wrote down,
> as well as each recorded performance of any draft, constitute different
> expressions ("fixations" in copyright jargon) of the abstract work.
> Likewise, multiple editions of a book are separate expressions. Each
> expression exists in one or more manifestations.  For example, a specific
> recording of the symphony, which is an expression, can be manifested as a
> vinyl disk, a cassette, a CD, a digital version.  The manifestations of a
> book might be as a hardback, a paperback, an e-book, or in a single-volume
> vs. a multi-volume version.  And each manifestation typically exists in
> multiple copies.
>
> Copyright status attaches to the expression: if a specific expression is
> in the public domain, then all manifestations and copies are too. .  The
> 11th Britannica (an expression which manifests as a set of books and
> several websites)  is in the public domain, whereas the 15th Britannica is
> not. Licenses can attach to an expression, a manifestation (you may have
> one license for a CD and a different one for digital audio), and
> exceptionally to a copy.
>
> CC0 is both a public domain dedication and a license.  If the dedication
> is effective, then it affects all the manifestations (on a website or a
> CD/DVD-ROM) and copies.  If it is not, then the permissive license affects
> only the copies it is attached to.
>
>> 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?
>>
> I can't answer this specifically.  But in general, a work that combines
> public-domain material and copyrighted material is itself subject to
> copyright, provided the copyrighted material is used under license.
> Obviously, if the creator of the combined work and of the copyrighted
> material are the same, such a license isn't hard to obtain.
>
> --
> John Cowan          http://vrici.lojban.org/~cowan        cowan at ccil.org
> My confusion is rapidly waxing
> For XML Schema's too taxing:
> I'd use DTDs / If they had local trees --
> I think I best switch to RELAX NG.
>
>
>
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>
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