1 Topic by ym

  • ym
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  • From: Istanbul, Turkey
  • Registered: 2008-10-08

Topic: Share-alike

I don't understand share-alike section in CC license of Musicbrainz. It reads:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ wrote:

You are free:

    to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
    to Remix — to adapt the work
    to make commercial use of the work

Under the following conditions:

    Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

    Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

So doesn't it mean if I build upon this work I have to use same or similar license, but it says in the upper section I can make a commercial use of the work. My question is; how can someone make a commercial work and share the work with the public at the same time? I am confused a little.

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: Share-alike

This is a question better suited for lawyers or creative commons, probably.

Having said this, the definition of "build upon this work" is the important one, and this is complicated - especially because the term is not used inside the actual license, and thus technically undefined. Based on the actual license terms, what it probably means is that if you "adapt" the work Share Alike applies. You don't have to "adapt" a work to make commercial use of it though. Think about music, which is more naturally suited to this license - it probably means you can play a CC-by-SA song on your commercial radio station with no worries; but can't remix it and sell it.

If you're talking about MB's data, it's getting a bit more complicated, but my guess is that it probably means you can't really offer a commercial service that augments those portions of the data set. I'd guess that you could use this data to do some analysis on the MB edit data for "most edited artists" which you may then use to make business decisions; but you couldn't then include that data into your system (adapting it?) and sell it. Bit confusing though.

If you have a real intended commercial use for the MB data, you're best to seek direct clarification on what is OK from official MusicBrainz channels, i.e. info@musicbrainz.org.

voiceinsideyou's Website

3 Reply by ym (edited by ym 2012-04-08 16:35:31)

  • ym
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  • From: Istanbul, Turkey
  • Registered: 2008-10-08

Re: Share-alike

Thanks for the answer. I think I got a better understanding now.
Something like; "you can use the database in your software but if you change anything in database then you have to release that new database in cc-by-sa, but your application, using any version of the database, can be commercial or whatever you like".
To be honest don't like it. This makes content free for application developers but certainly not people that use database and produce some results or even produce another database on top of it. Don't think it's fair, but I think it's the common usage in free software philosophy, tho I would still prefer http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ . Anyways thanks again for the answer.

EDIT: BTW, http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Database_Download needs to be updated. It still shows the old licenses.
Looking at the old licensing idea, it seems better than the new ones, because it separates core data from others, which seems a fair licensing IMO.

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: Share-alike

What has given you the impression that the license has changed? It hasn't.

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/About_MusicB … ta_License

The core data is No Rights Reserved so people can already do what they want with it, make money, repackage and sell it as their own etc. It's only the "personal" derived information which is Share Alike, such as edit notes, annotations, tags etc.

voiceinsideyou's Website

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2007-02-13

Re: Share-alike

To clarify my first post, please note that the ambiguity of "commercial" usage in the CC BY-SA 3.0 license is not relevant to MB, because MB's Share-Alike license for tags/edit notes etc is the strictly "Non-Commercial" one. So you can't use it for commercial stuff at all. I wasn't sure whether you were talking about music released on CC BY-SA or MB's data.

voiceinsideyou's Website

6 Reply by ym

  • ym
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  • From: Istanbul, Turkey
  • Registered: 2008-10-08

Re: Share-alike

aha silly me... really thanks for clarifying the subject.
Really weird, I looked at the same page and how did I came to that result, weird... I must be blind...
Thanks again, and also thanks for Musicbrainz for such a beautiful licensing.