[Open-education] Creative Commons amicus brief in U.S. litigation involving NC license

Fri Jul 7 18:25:09 UTC 2017

Greetings Open Education Friends:

Last year, Creative Commons started to watch a court case in the United
States involving interpretation of an NC 4.0 license in the commercial copy
shop context.

2016 blog posts:

   - Defending Noncommercial Uses: Great Minds v Fedex Office
   <https://creativecommons.org/2016/08/30/defending-noncommercial-uses-great-minds-v-fedex-office/>
   - Why we’re fighting to protect noncommercial uses
   <https://creativecommons.org/2016/09/09/why-were-fighting-to-protect-noncommercial-uses/>

   - Case documents:
   https://creativecommons.org/documents-great-minds-v-fedex-office-and-print-services-case/

As you may recall, the district court granted the motion to dismiss in
favor of FedEx Office, a commercial copy center that a K-12 school district
engaged to make copies of NC-licensed content for use in the classroom by
students. The court found the text of the CC license unambiguous on the
question of the ability of an entity to engage others besides employees to
exercise rights granted by the license.

Great Minds appealed the decision. Two days ago, CC requested permission to
file an amicus brief with the appeals court in support of FedEx Office
explaining the CC licenses. CC submitted a full brief with our motion. We
just posted an announcement, where you can find links to all of the
relevant legal filings and decisions:
*https://creativecommons.org/2017/07/06/cc-amicus-brief/*
<https://creativecommons.org/2017/07/06/cc-amicus-brief/>

We recognize this will likely raise questions -- including questions
directed to you the open education community -- about how NC and the
licenses work. The most important point to keep in mind is that this
litigation involves a single, simple question of interpretation for the
court's resolution: whether an entity-licensee can use non employees to
exercise its rights under CC licenses, including the NC licenses. The
principle we articulate in support of the district court's decision is as
stated in the brief and blog post: our license and applicable law allow
entity-licensees to use others, including non employees, to exercise rights
the license granted when doing so on behalf of and at the direction of a
licensee who is in compliance with the license. (See the brief for the
fullest, best statement.) To be sure, there are cases where commercial copy
centers would violate NC by making a profit off of copies, but that's not
the case or the facts pleaded here.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions. Creative Commons will
keep you posted as the appeal proceeds.

A special thanks to Diane Peters (CC General Counsel) and Mike Carroll (CC
U.S.) for all of their hard work on this case.

Your colleague in open education,

Cable

-- 

Cable Green, PhD
Director of Open Education
Creative Commons
@cgreen <http://twitter.com/cgreen>
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