"Tim Cowlishaw" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [...] NC simply does not
> mean that an artist cannot commercially exploit their work, as Commercial
> rights can be obtained through a seperate licence [...]
> However, to state that NC licences prohibit commercial exploitation
> of ones own work is a complete falsehood.

It's not completely false.  It depends if your work builds on anyone
else's work.  The argument about seperate licences is correct yet
misleading - commercial rights *can* be obtained through a seperate
licence, no matter how restrictive the public licence is, can't they?

In theory, you can obtain commercial rights over everything in a
broadcaster's archive.  In practice, some of the rights-holders will
make outrageous demands or flat-out refuse to grant you a useful
licence for your task.  Have you tried getting commercial rights over
works under a "non-commercial sharing" licence?  It's often a long and
tedious process, almost as vexing as getting clearance for works under
traditional EULAs.

> - it's simply a case of
> 'ask first, and agree terms' before allowing commercial sharing.

There's nothing simple about "ask first, and agree terms" for most
derived works.  You try getting permission for a commercial print run
of work based on material from one of the major non-commercial sites.
In many cases, you can't even identify all the interested parties, let
alone agree terms.

So, practically, much non-commercial sharing is not shareable
commercially and it is little use to artists who cannot afford to
subsidise their derived works.  NC is only one part of the cultural
commons and not as beneficial to society in general as full-commons.

I call NC a creative municipal flowerbed rather than a full creative
commons. Pretty to look at, but mostly useless for growing food for
the beasts. In one way, that's fine enough - food is not its purpose -
but it is madness to promote only flowerbeds and ignore the rest of
the commons when we are relatively short of sustainable food.

> [...] Others may disagree, but as
> mentioned before, pluralism is a strength rather than a weakness in my
> opinion.

Yes, pluralism is a strength, but NC-only promotion is not broad free
culture promotion, so iCommons Ltd is not a broad free culture org.

Hope that explains,
-- 
MJ Ray http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html tel:+44-844-4437-237 -
Webmaster-developer, statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder,
consumer and workers co-operative member http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ -
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