RE: Peggy Hoon on licenses

["Hoon, Peggy" <phoon@uncc.edu>]

That is a good question, Sandy.  Often in licenses for electronic 
resources for university libraries, there is a prohibition 
against "commercial" use by the authorized users.  It is likely 
that authorized users will read these resources and perhaps use 
quotes or fair use portions in their own scholarly article that 
may go on to be publisher by clearly "commercial" publishers.  So 
how literal should we take that prohibition?  Is that faculty's 
use "commercial" or "noncommercial".  I've been in other groups 
where the definition of "commercial" was argued heatedly - where 
half the group thought that charging only for cost recovery was 
noncommercial and the other thought that any exchange of money, 
was commercial, even if there was no profit.

So I'm as interested as you are.  How would you explain the 
difference?

Best, Peggy


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu on behalf of Sandy 
Thatcher
Sent: Wed 3/2/2011 5:54 PM
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Peggy Hoon on licenses

While I agree about the general utility of CC licenses, I wish
someone could explain to me what the difference between
"commercial" and "noncommercial" use is. The CC itself conducted
a survey a couple of years ago and found little consensus beyond
a very small core of shared understanding of what the distinction
connotes. This is not just a philosophical concern, since very
real practical consequences depend on knowing the difference as
it applies to various publishing ventures.

Sandy Thatcher