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Creative Commons’ birthday party week is hardly over and the organization responsible for the most common open content licenses is back to its core business: acting as a license steward. As reported repeatedly on this blog (e.g. “Discussing the NC Module“), the NonCommercial (NC) license module has attracted a substantial amount of criticism over the years. The suggestions with regard to the NC module range from fundamental such as to get rid of the module entirely (e.g. by the Students for Free Cutlture) to moderate such as clarify the meaning of the NC clause.

In his most recent statement on the issue, Creative Commons’ Timothy Vollmer indicates that in addition to some uncontroversial suggestions  changing the name of “NonCommercial” to “Commercial Rights Reserved” is on the table:

This last point warrants a specific mention here, as it would be a big (and potentially sensitive) change to the branding of the Creative Commons NonCommercial licenses. This proposal is for a simple renaming of the “NonCommercial” license element to “Commercial Rights Reserved,” without any change in the definition of what it covers. Renaming it to something that more accurately reflects the operation of the license may ensure that it is not unintentionally used by licensors who intend something different. For more information about the idea and rationale behind this proposal, please see the CC wiki page on the topic.

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