Re: Educational purpose

On  2015-Apr-14, at 14:43, Renato Iannella <ri@semanticidentity.com> wrote:

> 
>> On 14 Apr 2015, at 12:02 am, Mo McRoberts <mo.mcroberts@bbc.co.uk> wrote:
>> 
>> Okay - humour me — I know I’ve danced around this a few times… but… who *is* defining it?
> 
> Looking at the BBC’s terms:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/terms/
> They make a clear distinction between “personal” and “business” use (purposes).
> 
> You can then delve into the details of each license..but the point is that there are common concepts about what “personal” and “business” use mean - and there is no way that if we defined “personal” that it would match the intricacies of the BBC Personal Use license.

Yes, which is why we shouldn’t do that.

As it happens, the BBC defines ‘personal use’ as use by 'a "consumer" as defined in section 25(1) of the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (as amended)’, and even *that* isn’t actually a useful definition for most people (which is one of several reasons why the T&Cs are actually undergoing a process of being revised at the moment).

If the BBC wanted to express what it meant by “personal” use, it would almost certainly have to mint a URI for its definition. Anybody else could then use that URI if their definition matched the BBC’s, or mint their own if it didn’t.

> Just like ccRELs definition of: "cc:CommercialUse - using the Work for commercial purposes” would not come close to the BBC Business Use license.

No, not least because nobody can acceptably define what it means. The outcome of CC’s own studies in this largely boils down to “it was probably a mistake to have -NC [and as a consequence, cc:CommercialUse]”.

These kinds of terms are *not* well-defined. They do not have commonly-understood usage. We accept them and use them because as a species we’re quite lazy, and most of us don’t have to deal with, or don’t care about, the imprecision that results (even when it is actually very problematic).

> But the point of these languages was never to replace the verbatim wording of such licenses/policies.

No, it’s not, it’s to capture the /meaning/ of that wording using vocabularies of stock definitions which match what the wording recounts.

> So imagine we had “personal”, “business” and “educational” purpose usages - how are they defined precisely? Does it really matter?

Well, yes, it does.

The purpose of a REL is to allow automated decision-making to occur as a result of the expressed rights and restrictions. If those aren’t defined, no meaningful decisions can be made, and so there’s quite literally no point in adopting a term which has no clear definition.

> 
> If we defined “personal” as “for personal use” wouldn’t that be enough?
> Microsoft sells “Office for Home”, “Office for Business”, and “Office for Students” - and there is no need to read the T&Cs to determine which one you should buy.

Actually, there is - it’s just that people don’t bother when they probably ought to.

Can I use Outlook which I got as part of my Office 365 Home subscription to connect to my employer’s Exchange server? Is that actually permitted by the terms, or am I breaching copyright law by doing so? In that situation, is checking my work e-mail or calendar “business use” and prohibited by a Home license? What happens if I’m a part-time student?

M.

-- 
Mo McRoberts - Chief Technical Architect - Archives & Digital Public Space,
Zone 2.12, BBC Scotland, 40 Pacific Quay, Glasgow G51 1DA.

Inside the BBC? My movements this week: http://neva.li/where-is-mo

Received on Wednesday, 15 April 2015 12:55:18 UTC