Re: definiton of "commercial use" RE: Peggy Hoon on licenses

[Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>]

What does "monetary reward" mean if "cost recovery" is allowed? 
Does it mean "profit-making"? In that case, if a university press 
(non-profit) issued an anthology of articles including yours 
expecting only to break even on the sale with the editor 
receiving no royalty, would that be considered "noncommercial"?

It's interesting that the second clarification would fly in the 
face of the court's decision in the Texaco photocopying suit, 
which found the copying to be "commercial" because the company 
within which the copying was done is a for-profit business.

Thus, I don't find this "definition" particularly helpful. It 
still leaves a lot of ambiguity remaining.

Sandy Thatcher



At 4:58 PM -0500 3/4/11, Joachim.Meier@ptb.de wrote:

>A few month ago I signed a License agreement with the Royal
>Society of Chemistry, in which "commercial use" was defined in a
>way most of us can agree on, I suppose.
>
>Definitions, 1 b. "Commercial Use: the use of the Licensed
>Material for the purpose of monetary reward (whether by or for
>the Institution of an Authorised User) by means of sale, resale,
>loan, transfer, hire or other form of exploitation of the
>Licensed Material.
>
>"For the avoidance of doubt, the use by the Institution or
>Authorised Users of the Licensed Material in the course of
>research funded by a commercial organisation is not deemed to
>constitute Commercial Use. Recovery of costs is not being deemed
>Commercial Use. "
>
>Greetings
>Joachim Meier
>____________________________________________________
>Dr.- Ing. Joachim E. Meier
>Head of Library
>Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt
>(http://www.ptb.de)
>38023 Braunschweig
>GERMANY
>E-mail: Joachim.Meier@ptb.de
>____________________________________________________
>
>
>Von: Sandy Thatcher <sandy.thatcher@alumni.princeton.edu>
>An: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>Datum: 02.03.2011 23:56
>Betreff: 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
>
>
>>The best licensing in existence for scholarly communication,
>>IMHO, is CC licensing, as this simplifies understanding of how
>>materials can be used. CC licenses are used by
>>subscriptions-based as well as open access publishers. Of
>>course, this does not help when we are licensing resources from
>>vendors / publishers who do not use CC licenses. The reason that
>>I bring this up is because all of us who work with vendors at
>>any level can play a useful role in helping them to understand
>>the current and evolving needs of scholarship, so that they can
>>develop practices which will help them to survive and thrive
>>into the future.
>  >
>  >best,
>  >
>  >Heather G. Morrison
>  >Project Coordinator
>  >BC Electronic Library Network