Creative Commons license upheld in Adam Curry tabloid case
Creative Commons announced that the first known court case involving its content license was decided on March 9th by the District Court of Amsterdam. See the press release. According to the post by Creative Commons general counsel Mia Garlick, "The case confirmed that the conditions of a Creative Commons license automatically apply to the content licensed under it."
Update: See CC blog post on this.
The case involved former MTV VJ Adam Curry, who posted photos on Flickr under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike license. A Dutch tabloid printed several photos, thus violating the non-commercial and share-alike terms of the license.
The newspaper claimed that it was misled by the notice on Flickr that "this photo is public", but the court concluded that the newspaper was in the position to investigate and click on the symbol accompanying the notice 'some rights reserved' that appeared with the photos online.
The decision is in Dutch, and we expect it will be translated into English soon. Here are translated excerpts from Creative Commons:
"All four photos that were taken from www.flickr.com were made by Curry and posted by him on that website. In principle, Curry owns the copyright in the four photos, and the photos, by posting them on that website, are subject to the [Creative Commons] License. Therefore Audax should observe the conditions that control the use by third parties of the photos as stated in the License."and
"Audax has not observed the conditions stated in the License [ ]. The claim [ ] will therefore be allowed; defendants will be enjoined from publishing all photos that [Curry] has published on www.flickr.com, unless this occurs in accordance with the conditions of the License."
Here are the quotes from the CC press release:
"We are very happy with this decision as it demonstrates that the millions of creators who use creative commons licenses are effectively protected against abuses of their willingness to contribute to the commons," said Paul Keller, Public Project Lead for Creative Commons in the Netherlands.
"This decision confirms that the Creative Commons licensing system is an effective way for content creators to manage their copyrights online," said Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons CEO & Chairman, "The decision should also serve as a timely reminder to those seeking to use content online, to respect the terms that apply to that content."
See also post on Patry Copyright Blog and post on Trademark Law Blog.
Disclosure: we assisted CC in the drafting of its U.S. licenses.
Cathy Kirkman is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati in Palo Alto, California. Her practice focuses on intellectual