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Questions galore: Non commercial

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  1. mlentz
    Member

    Hello!

    I'd like to learn more about Creative Commons, and I had a list of questions to which I haven't been able to find the answers in the FAQs.

    These are all hypotheticals at the moment. Would love feedback.

    - I work for a for-profit company. However, we have a training department that offers only internal training. We are training our own employees, not paying clients. My training course includes CC-licensed images that include "Non Commercial." Can I use these? We're not technically making money off the training.

    - I have a blog on which I have advertising. I make minimal money at best from this advertising, but it is there. In a blog post (separate from the advertising), I have used a BY-NC image and given appropriate attribution. Is this still considered non-commercial?

    - I offer a training class and I'm using several Creative Commons-licensed images in a presentation and I charge people to take the course, can I use images with the non-commercial licenses?

    (I think I know the answer to the last one, but I want to verify.)

    Thanks! It seems that the world of "Noncommercial" is where everyone I talk to gets a bit confused.

    Cheers!

    Posted 5 months ago #

  2. sympodius
    Member

    I'm not an expert, but I imagine it depends on which CC-license was used. However, if you weren't modifying the images, you attributed the original author and you weren't making any money directly from their use, I think you're OK for pretty much every license.

    As for the second and third point, I believe that if there is a non-commercial clause in the license, then you're not allowed those.

    However, you should keep in mind that you can always ask the author directly and see if they mind or not. People have contacted me a couple of times to ask to use my stuff on a blog with advertising (even though my stuff is usually NC licensed) and I usually let them. Generally, as long as people are using stuff within the spirit of which I released it, I don't mind. But that's something you'd have to ask each creator about themselves. In some cases, people have licensed the content from me for use in a particular product and I have then lifted the non-commercial clause for that one product.

    My understanding of the 'non-commercial' aspect is that if some entity makes money from a product that included creative commons content, then it must not have a non-commercial clause. For example, a blog page is a product and a creative commons image could be an element of that product. A presentation is a product, and the CC images would be elements of that product. If you charge people to see the product, the images should not have a non-commercial clause.

    As I say, though, I'm not an expert and this may not be correct. I find it best just to ask the original content owner if there is anything you're not sure about.

    Posted 5 months ago #

  3. osorio
    Member

    quote: "We are training our own employees, not paying clients. My training course includes CC-licensed images that include "Non Commercial." Can I use these?" end quote.

    I think that this is one of the reasons that CC licenses were created in the first place. Allowing original works to be utilized in this manner can be rewarding on many levels. Many non profits develop learning tools and similar materials to help educate those who need it the most.

    Posted 3 months ago #

  4. Anonymous

    However, you should keep in mind that you can always ask the author directly and see if they mind or not. People have contacted me a couple of times to ask to use my stuff on a blog with advertising (even though my stuff is usually NC licensed) and I usually let them. Generally, as long as people are using stuff within the spirit of which I released it, I don't mind.

    Posted 1 month ago #

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