Openness, Permission, Courtesy and Nuances of Licenses – ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education

"I have noticed before people on Flickr who give their work a CC license and then complain that folks take their photos without informing them (attribution, yes; informing/thanking, no). Sure, it’s good courtesy to thank folks if you use their photos, but such a hassle to do it for each photo you use on a slide deck or such. The whole point of using CC licensed stuff is to not always ask permission. That’s what the CC license is. Permission to anyone. To do what the license permits you to do. I realized that I always 'favorite' any photo I’m planning to use, so I guess I’m giving the creator some kind of indication that I like their photo, but not really telling them I’m planning to use it, or how.

I remember learning this the first time someone republished something of mine without my permission. If it’s CC licensed, the whole point is to tell them they don’t need to seek permission each time. It’s good courtesy, I think, to inform the author, but it’s not necessary. But it’s complex. If a for-profit entity republished my CC-BY-NC article, but publishes it openly and for free, is that a commercial use? What if the space has ads on it, is that a commercial use? If I publish my blog CC-BY and a for-profit magazine regularly republishes it, am I really OK with that? Am I OK with a magazine with values opposed to my own constantly republishing my stuff without my permission? What about if they take derivatives of my writing and use it in a different context, to really make an opposing point to mine, is that acceptable to me? These are not trivial questions, I think, for openness advocates to ask themselves."