- Open Knowledge Definition (Open Knowledge Foundation 2006),
- OSI Open Source Definition (Open Source Initiative 2004),
- Definition of Free Cultural Works (Möller 2008; Möller and Anonymous 2007ff),
- the GNU Free Software Definition (Free Software Foundation 2010),
One option to avoid such license incompatibility is to remove the “Share Alike” clause, insisting on attribution alone (CC BY, e.g., Benenson 2008). This further increases the dissemination and reusability of a work. However, this also allows the possibility that derived works may not be “given back”, i.e. that works derived from free and open content may not themselves be open.
In light of the incompatibility between the most frequently used CC licenses (CC BY-SA and CC BY-NC-SA), a highly relevant question for biodiversity information dissemination is: Which combinations of works under different licenses result in a “collection” (in which cases the above CC licenses may be mixed) and which create an illicit derivative work or adaptation? In our experience, the (unambiguously incompatible) case of combining two texts seamlessly into a new work, such that the borders between the original works can no longer be traced, is not very relevant for the biodiversity domain. Typically, original works remain delimited and authorship and license of the parts documented. A web page with a gallery of images where the license and creators of each image is annotated will certainly be a collection. The same should apply for similarly clearly separated blocks of text, or combinations of text and image blocks.
Further, copyright law does not refer to digital representations but to abstract works. Thus, whether an image gallery is composed of separate files bound together by a web page, or whether the elements have been combined into a single file (e.g., because of the need for non-rectangular cropping or connecting elements) should not change the status as an “image collection”, provided the parts remain individually recognizable and attribution and license individually documented.
However, the ways in which media (sound, images, or video) or text are combined in many biodiversity projects go significantly beyond image galleries or the traditional collection examples (“encyclopedias and anthologies”) mentioned in the Creative Commons license text. Images and other media are often closely embedded and integrated with corresponding text. The CC licenses do anticipate creative arrangements. Collections may “by reason of the selection and arrangement of their contents, constitute intellectual creations” (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode). Within biodiversity, the Encyclopedia of Life (EoL, http://eol.org) uses complex combinations of CC BY-NC-SA and CC BY-SA material. However, EoL has license agreements with its contributors allowing for use on EoL independent of the Creative Commons licenses. A more relevant example may thus be the complex ways in which Wikipedia occasionally combines text under CC BY-SA with images under various open content licenses share-alike-licenses, e.g., some images being licensed exclusively under the GNU Free Documentation License.
