can someone explain to me why non-commercial creative commons licenses are not open when applied to scholarly articles?
I've heard this statment a lot but I'm not 100% on the underlying logic.
@vickysteeves
Openness means more than "can be read for free". Open content can be culturally remixed, curated, archived, annotated, read aloud at parties, etc... Now, define "commerce". Can you do paper-readings occur at parties if there's an entry fee? If the archives accept donations? If the remixer shares their work on patron?
90% of the time "NC" users just want to avoid exploitation of their work. In such cases I suggest "SA" instead! Make them pay with more culture!
@cathal So you're issue is the definition of 'commerce' under this license is ambiguous? because unde NC, I would say the majority of people can remix, curate, etc. it's a problem at an *institutional* level?
if it was 'nonprofit' instead of 'non commercial' would that be better for you?
@vickysteeves
Honestly, no: commerce isn't per-se a wrongful use of open content, in my opinion, so I don't think it's appropriate to call something open when it tries to make judgements on the merits of re-use. The Free-Libre / Open Source Software communities made the same determination, and software cannot be called "Free as in Freedom" if it forbids commercial use. It's not only about ambiguity, it's about the values of creating a robust commons and embracing what that means.