Editing Creative Commons license (section)

== Legal aspects ==
The legal implications of large numbers of works having Creative Commons licensing are difficult to predict, and there is speculation that media creators often lack insight to be able to choose the license which best meets their intent in applying it.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Katz |first=Zachary |year=2005 |title=Pitfalls of Open Licensing: An Analysis of Creative Commons Licensing |journal=[[IDEA: The Intellectual Property Law Review]] |volume=46 |issue=3 |page=391}}</ref>

Some works licensed using Creative Commons licenses have been involved in several court cases.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Creative Commons Case Law |url=http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Case_Law |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110901220753/http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Case_Law |archive-date=September 1, 2011 |access-date=August 31, 2011 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>  Creative Commons itself was not a party to any of these cases; they only involved licensors or licensees of Creative Commons licenses. When the cases went as far as decisions by judges (that is, they were not dismissed for lack of jurisdiction or were not settled privately out of court), they have all validated the legal robustness of Creative Commons public licenses.
{{Further|Public information licence}}

=== Dutch tabloid ===
In early 2006, podcaster [[Adam Curry]] sued a Dutch tabloid who published photos from Curry's Flickr page without Curry's permission. The photos were licensed under the Creative Commons Non-Commercial license. While the verdict was in favor of Curry, the tabloid avoided having to pay restitution to him as long as they did not repeat the offense. Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, main creator of the Dutch CC license and director of the Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam, commented, "The Dutch Court's decision is especially noteworthy because it confirms that the conditions of a Creative Commons license automatically apply to the content licensed under it, and binds users of such content even without expressly agreeing to, or having knowledge of, the conditions of the license."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Creative Commons license upheld by court |url=http://news.cnet.com/2100-1030_3-6052292.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025165735/http://news.cnet.com/2100-1030_3-6052292.html |archive-date=October 25, 2012 |access-date=December 24, 2012 |publisher=News.cnet.com |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Rimmer |first=Matthew |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1ONyncVruj8C&q=The+Dutch+Court%27s+decision+is+especially+noteworthy+because+it+confirms+that+the+conditions+of+a+Creative+Commons+license+automatically&pg=PA271 |title=Digital Copyright and the Consumer Revolution: Hands Off My Ipod – Matthew Rimmer – Google Böcker |date=January 2007 |publisher=Edward Elgar |isbn=9781847207142 |access-date=December 24, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160414003634/https://books.google.com/books?id=1ONyncVruj8C&pg=PA271&dq=The+Dutch+Court%27s+decision+is+especially+noteworthy+because+it+confirms+that+the+conditions+of+a+Creative+Commons+license+automatically&hl=sv&sa=X&ei=SzKvUMOkJseF4gSp4oEY&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=The%20Dutch%20Court%27s%20decision%20is%20especially%20noteworthy%20because%20it%20confirms%20that%20the%20conditions%20of%20a%20Creative%20Commons%20license%20automatically&f=false |archive-date=April 14, 2016 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=March 16, 2006 |title=Creative Commons License Upheld by Dutch Court |url=http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060316052623594 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100505060734/http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20060316052623594 |archive-date=May 5, 2010 |access-date=September 2, 2006 |website=[[Groklaw]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=March 16, 2006 |title=Creative Commons Licenses Enforced in Dutch Court |url=https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5823 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110906074741/http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5823 |archive-date=September 6, 2011 |access-date=August 31, 2011 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

=== Virgin Mobile ===
In 2007, [[Virgin Mobile Australia]] launched an advertising campaign promoting their cellphone text messaging service using the work of amateur photographers who uploaded their work to [[Flickr]] using a Creative Commons-BY (Attribution) license. Users licensing their images this way freed their work for use by any other entity, as long as the original creator was attributed credit, without any other compensation required. Virgin upheld this single restriction by printing a URL leading to the photographer's Flickr page on each of their ads. However, one picture, depicting 15-year-old Alison Chang at a fund-raising carwash for her church,<ref name="Cohen">{{Cite news |last=Cohen |first=Noam |title=Use My Photo? Not Without Permission. |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/technology/01link.html |url-status=live |access-date=September 25, 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615133400/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/01/technology/01link.html |archive-date=June 15, 2011 |quote=One moment, Alison Chang, a 15-year-old student from Dallas, is cheerfully goofing around at a local church-sponsored car wash, posing with a friend for a photo. Weeks later, that photo is posted online and catches the eye of an ad agency in Australia, and the altered image of Alison appears on a billboard in Adelaide as part of a [[Virgin Mobile]] advertising campaign. |df=mdy-all}}</ref> caused some controversy when she sued Virgin Mobile.  The photo was taken by Alison's church youth counselor, Justin Ho-Wee Wong, who uploaded the image to Flickr under the Creative Commons license.<ref name="Cohen" /> In 2008, the case (concerning [[personality rights]] rather than copyright as such) was thrown out of a Texas court for lack of jurisdiction.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Evan Brown |date=January 22, 2009 |title=No personal jurisdiction over Australian defendant in Flickr right of publicity case |url=http://blog.internetcases.com/2009/01/22/no-personal-jurisdiction-over-australian-defendant-in-flickr-right-of-publicity-case/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110713050011/http://blog.internetcases.com/2009/01/22/no-personal-jurisdiction-over-australian-defendant-in-flickr-right-of-publicity-case/ |archive-date=July 13, 2011 |access-date=September 25, 2010 |publisher=Internet Cases, a blog about law and technology}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=September 27, 2007 |title=Lawsuit Against Virgin Mobile and Creative Commons – FAQ |url=https://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7680 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110907054202/http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7680 |archive-date=September 7, 2011 |access-date=August 31, 2011 |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

=== ''SGAE vs Fernández'' ===
In the fall of 2006, the [[collecting society]] {{lang|es|italic=no|Sociedad General de Autores y Editores}} ([[Sociedad General de Autores y Editores|SGAE]]) in Spain sued Ricardo Andrés Utrera Fernández, owner of a disco bar located in [[Badajoz]] who played CC-licensed music. SGAE argued that Fernández should pay royalties for public performance of the music between November 2002 and August 2005. The Lower Court rejected the collecting society's claims because the owner of the bar proved that the music he was using was not managed by the society.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mia Garlick |date=March 23, 2006 |title=Spanish Court Recognizes CC-Music |url=https://creativecommons.org/2006/03/23/spanishcourtrecognizesccmusic/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230926051259/https://creativecommons.org/2006/03/23/spanishcourtrecognizesccmusic/ |archive-date=September 26, 2023 |access-date=November 22, 2023 |publisher=Creative Commons |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

In February 2006, the Cultural Association Ladinamo (based in Madrid, and represented by [[Javier de la Cueva]]) was granted the use of copyleft music in their public activities. The sentence said:

{{blockquote|Admitting the existence of music equipment, a joint evaluation of the evidence practiced, this court is convinced that the defendant prevents communication of works whose management is entrusted to the plaintiff [SGAE], using a repertoire of authors who have not assigned the exploitation of their rights to the SGAE, having at its disposal a database for that purpose and so it is manifested both by the legal representative of the Association and by Manuela Villa Acosta, in charge of the cultural programming of the association, which is compatible with the alternative character of the Association and its integration in the movement called '[[copy left]]'.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sentencia nº 12/2006 Juzgado de lo Mercantil nº 5 de Madrid |website=Derecho de Internet |url=http://www.derecho-internet.org/node/359 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151126165923/http://www.derecho-internet.org/node/359 |archive-date=November 26, 2015 |access-date=2015-12-24 |language=es |df=mdy-all}}</ref>}}

=== ''GateHouse Media, Inc. v. That's Great News, LLC'' ===
On June 30, 2010, [[GateHouse Media]] filed a lawsuit against ''That is Great News, LLC''. GateHouse Media owns a number of local newspapers, including ''[[Rockford Register Star]]'', which is based in Rockford, Illinois. ''That is Great News'' makes plaques out of newspaper articles and sells them to the people featured in the articles.<ref name="New Copyright Lawsuit">{{Cite web |last=Evan Brown |date=July 2, 2010 |title=New Copyright Lawsuit Involves Creative Commons |url=http://blog.internetcases.com/2010/07/02/new-copyright-lawsuit-involves-creative-commons/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120621215029/http://blog.internetcases.com/2010/07/02/new-copyright-lawsuit-involves-creative-commons/ |archive-date=June 21, 2012 |access-date=April 20, 2012 |publisher=Internet Cases |df=mdy-all}}</ref> GateHouse sued ''That is Great News'' for copyright infringement and breach of contract. GateHouse claimed that ''That is Great News'' violated the non-commercial and no-derivative works restrictions on GateHouse Creative Commons licensed work when they published the material on their website. The case was settled on August 17, 2010, though the terms of the settlement were not made public.<ref name="New Copyright Lawsuit" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=August 5, 2010 |title=GateHouse Media v. That's Great News |url=http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/gatehouse-media-v-thats-great-news#description |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120502165158/http://www.citmedialaw.org/threats/gatehouse-media-v-thats-great-news#description |archive-date=May 2, 2012 |access-date=April 20, 2012 |publisher=Citizen Media Law Project |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

=== ''Drauglis v. Kappa Map Group, LLC'' ===
In 2007, photographer Art Drauglis uploaded several pictures to the photo-sharing website Flickr, giving them the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic License (CC&nbsp;BY-SA). One photo, titled "Swain's Lock, Montgomery Co., MD.", was downloaded by Kappa Map Group, a map-making company, and published in 2012 on the front cover of ''Montgomery Co. Maryland Street Atlas''. The text "Photo: Swain's Lock, Montgomery Co., MD Photographer: Carly Lesser & Art Drauglis, Creative Commoms {{sic}}, CC-BY-SA-2.0" was placed on the back cover, but nothing on the front indicated authorship.

The validity of CC BY-SA 2.0 as a license was not in dispute. CC&nbsp;BY-SA&nbsp;2.0 requires that the licensee use nothing less restrictive than the CC BY-SA 2.0 terms. The atlas was sold commercially and not for free reuse by others. The dispute was whether Drauglis' license terms that would apply to "derivative works" applied to the entire atlas. Drauglis sued the defendants in June 2014 for copyright infringement and license breach, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, damages, fees, and costs. Drauglis asserted, among other things, that Kappa Map Group "exceeded the scope of the License because defendant did not publish the Atlas under a license with the same or similar terms as those under which the Photograph was originally licensed."<ref>{{Cite web |date=August 18, 2015 |title=Memorandum Opinion |url=https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_14-cv-01043/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_14-cv-01043-0.pdf |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160921202242/https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/USCOURTS-dcd-1_14-cv-01043/pdf/USCOURTS-dcd-1_14-cv-01043-0.pdf |archive-date=September 21, 2016 |access-date=August 29, 2016 |publisher=United States District Court for the District of Columbia |df=mdy-all}}</ref> The judge dismissed the case on that count, ruling that the atlas was not a [[derivative work]] of the photograph in the sense of the license, but rather a [[collective work]]. Since the atlas was not a derivative work of the photograph, Kappa Map Group did not need to license the entire atlas under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. The judge also determined that the work had been properly attributed.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Guadamuz |first=Andres |date=October 24, 2015 |title=US Court interprets copyleft clause in Creative Commons licenses |url=http://www.technollama.co.uk/us-court-interprets-copyleft-clause-in-creative-commons-licenses |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222123232/http://www.technollama.co.uk/us-court-interprets-copyleft-clause-in-creative-commons-licenses |archive-date=December 22, 2015 |access-date=10 December 2015 |website=TechnoLlama |df=mdy-all}}</ref>

In particular, the judge determined that it was sufficient to credit the author of the photo as prominently as authors of similar authorship (such as the authors of individual maps contained in the book) and that the name "CC-BY-SA-2.0" is sufficiently precise to locate the correct license on the internet and can be considered a valid identifier for the license.<!--NB: The court found that it was a valid URN. But don't report this here because, in fact, it is not a URN (it doesn't follow the URN schema; see [[Uniform Resource Name]]). The court's reasoning was incorrect on a basic technical level, even if the legal outcome is reasonable--><ref name="University of Michigan Library" /><!--Self-published source, but nonetheless reliable as the author is an acknowledged subject-matter expert-->

=== ''Verband zum Schutz geistigen Eigentums im Internet'' (VGSE) ===
In July 2016, German computer magazine ''[[LinuxUser]]'' reported that a German blogger, Christoph Langner, used two {{nowrap|CC BY}}-licensed photographs from Berlin photographer Dennis Skley on his private blog Linuxundich.  Langner duly mentioned the author and the license and added a link to the original.  Langner was later contacted by the {{lang|de|Verband zum Schutz geistigen Eigentums im Internet|italics=yes}} (VGSE) (Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property in the Internet) with a demand for €2300 for failing to provide the full name of the work, the full name of the author, the license text, and a source link, as is required by the fine print in the license. Of this sum, €40 was to go to the photographer, with the remainder retained by VGSE.<ref name="Luther-2016">{{Cite journal |last=Luther |first=Jörg |date=July 2016 |title=Kleingedrucktes – Editorial |trans-title=Fine print – Editorial |url=http://www.linux-community.de/Internal/Artikel/Print-Artikel/LinuxUser/2016/07/Kleingedrucktes |url-status=live |journal=[[LinuxUser]] |language=de |issn=1615-4444 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160915150620/http://www.linux-community.de/Internal/Artikel/Print-Artikel/LinuxUser/2016/07/Kleingedrucktes |archive-date=September 15, 2016 |access-date=2016-09-09 |number=7/2016 |df=mdy-all}}</ref><ref name="Feil Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft-2014">{{Cite web |date=8 January 2014 |title=Abmahnung des Verbandes zum Schutz geistigen Eigentums im Internet (VSGE) |trans-title=Notice to cease and desist from the Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property in the Internet (VSGE) |url=https://www.recht-freundlich.de/abmahnung-urheberrechtlich-filesharing/abmahnung-des-verbandes-zum-schutz-geistigen-eigentums-im-internet-vsge |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914075031/https://www.recht-freundlich.de/abmahnung-urheberrechtlich-filesharing/abmahnung-des-verbandes-zum-schutz-geistigen-eigentums-im-internet-vsge |archive-date=September 14, 2016 |access-date=2016-09-09 |publisher=Feil Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft |language=de |location=Hannover, Germany |df=mdy-all}}</ref> The Higher Regional Court of Cologne dismissed the claim in May 2019.<ref>{{Cite web |date=22 May 2019 |title=Creative Commons-Foto-Abmahnung: Rasch Rechtsanwälte setzen erfolgreich Gegenansprüche durch |trans-title=Creative Commons photo notice: Rasch attorneys successfully enforce counterclaims |url=https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/creative-commons-foto-abmahnung-rasch-rechtsanwaelte-setzen-erfolgreich-gegenansprueche-durch_155491.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191219023851/https://www.anwalt.de/rechtstipps/creative-commons-foto-abmahnung-rasch-rechtsanwaelte-setzen-erfolgreich-gegenansprueche-durch_155491.html |archive-date=December 19, 2019 |access-date=18 December 2019 |website=anwalt.de |language=de}}</ref>