Scratch

Can you license a Scratch project under a different CC license?

Last edited by Vista4563 (2010-04-10 05:13:04)

08jackt wrote:

Vista4563 wrote:

Can you license a Scratch project under a different CC license?

I doubt it. Otherwise some one might be able to sue another for remixing there project. xD

I doubt it... I was suggesting BY-NC-SA.

Thanks, cheddargirl.

I was going to suggest other licenses, but the "No Derivs" license option doesn't promote sharing...

Thanks... I've used CC licenses before, so I know how they work. 

Thank you! 

cheddargirl wrote:

Both human readable summaries of the licenses seem to be the same in content

Both are really similar, I just read them and the only difference is that in the 3.0 license you may also distribute modified versions of the project with a compatible license, rather than exactly the same or a similar one. That's the only difference although I don't know what would be an example of a "compatible" license. D:

And yeah, I think the non-commercial bit should be added too.

cheddargirl wrote:

I just noticed that all Scratch projects are released under CC BY-SA 2.0. However, this license is outdated - a newer version of the license (CC BY-SA 3.0) is available.

Both human readable summaries of the licenses seem to be the same in content, with only the title being different (I have not yet gone over the full license to see if there are any differences), but, even then, I think it might be a good idea to use CC 3.0 instead of CC 2.0 on project pages. 

EDIT: Vista4563 suggested changing the license to CC BY-NC-SA 3.0. The current license and it's newer counterpart, both of which are only BY-SA, do not cover prevention of people using the projects for commercial purposes (and I'm pretty sure most of us don't want people using our projects for commercial gain, especially when we work hard on our projects and release them for free on the Scratch website).

(just in case you have no idea of the meaning of the license acronyms):
BY = Attribution
SA = Share-Alike
NC = Non Commercial

Lets do it!

cheddargirl wrote:

technoguyx wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Both human readable summaries of the licenses seem to be the same in content

Both are really similar, I just read them and the only difference is that in the 3.0 license you may also distribute modified versions of the project with a compatible license, rather than exactly the same or a similar one. That's the only difference although I don't know what would be an example of a "compatible" license. D:

And yeah, I think the non-commercial bit should be added too.

When they mean "compatible", they mean a license whose terms are much like those stated in the Creative Commons License (see here).

Ironically, there hasn't been any other license that is approved to be compatible with a Creative Commons. 

littletonkslover wrote:

I still think you should have an option that people can't use or remix your work.

According to the site's Terms of Use, all materials released on the Scratch site are under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. Preventing project remixes, then, goes against the Terms of Use.

Hmm.....Deviantart has CC and they can choose whether someone can use there artwork or not. Odd.

littletonkslover wrote:

littletonkslover wrote:

I still think you should have an option that people can't use or remix your work.

cheddargirl wrote:

According to the site's Terms of Use, all materials released on the Scratch site are under the CC BY-SA 2.0 license. Preventing project remixes, then, goes against the Terms of Use.

Hmm.....Deviantart has CC and they can choose whether someone can use there artwork or not. Odd.

deviantART's original intent was to give artists more exposure, but "exposure" can be many things (selling prints, sharing resources, using it as a resume portfolio), so it makes sense that deviantART should give the option to have artists choose their own license or retain full copyright.

However, with Scratch, one of the main ideas behind the website is remixing to learn. Andresmh once said "One of our core beliefs is that creativity and learning flourish when people are able to learn from and build on each other's work." (read more on andresmh's view on remixing here). With this in mind, it does not make sense to suddenly start individualizing licenses that go against the idea of Scratch in the first place.

floatingmagictree wrote:

So if I'm hearing this correctly.... Disabling downloading and remixing projects is illegal?

Not illegal, per se, but saying something in the project notes like "Don't remix this project" doesn't really hold precedence since the Terms of Use allows for remixes.

Last edited by cheddargirl (2010-04-10 23:49:01)

Thanks for bringing this up cheddargirl!

My understanding is that the existence of CC 3.0 does not mean that CC 2.0 is invalid or outdated. It just means there is a new CC license created. For example, a lot of software developers continue using GNU Public License 2.0 because they like it more than the version 3.0.

The NC clause opens an interesting discussion.  If we were to add NC this could have some perhaps undesired consequences. For example, some people have written and sold books about Scratch with screenshots and code of people's projects. This would no longer be possible if we had NC. Also, I wonder if it would be against the NC to have someone's project embedded onto some blog that receives money from Google Ads. Additionally, adding a  NC to all the projects already shared poses some challenges, I am not sure changing the license of existing projects is the most appropriate thing to do.

A common suggestion is to let people pick the license they want: Flickr does that, YouTube does not. The reality is that very few people change the defaults and letting people pick a license can open a can of worms in terms of enforcement and licensing incompatibilities.  When I picked CC-BY-SA I figured it was the simplest and the most appropriate license to promote the remix culture.

We might want to revisit all this, or not... I'm not sure it's worth it. Here is some more info on the differences between 2.0 and 3.0: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7249

Thoughts?

andresmh wrote:

Thanks for bringing this up cheddargirl!

My understanding is that the existence of CC 3.0 does not mean that CC 2.0 is invalid or outdated. It just means there is a new CC license created. For example, a lot of software developers continue using GNU Public License 2.0 because they like it more than the version 3.0.

The NC clause opens an interesting discussion.  If we were to add NC this could have some perhaps undesired consequences. For example, some people have written and sold books about Scratch with screenshots and code of people's projects. This would no longer be possible if we had NC. Also, I wonder if it would be against the NC to have someone's project embedded onto some blog that receives money from Google Ads. Additionally, adding a  NC to all the projects already shared poses some challenges, I am not sure changing the license of existing projects is the most appropriate thing to do.

A common suggestion is to let people pick the license they want: Flickr does that, YouTube does not. The reality is that very few people change the defaults and letting people pick a license can open a can of worms in terms of enforcement and licensing incompatibilities.  When I picked CC-BY-SA I figured it was the simplest and the most appropriate license to promote the remix culture.

We might want to revisit all this, or not... I'm not sure it's worth it. Here is some more info on the differences between 2.0 and 3.0: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/7249

Thoughts?

Maybe there could be an option to re-license all new works under the new license, and keep the existing projects under the original, but with a link to update the license to the new license.

Plus, every license can be waived under the licensee's permission.

Always good to be up-to-date.