How about “If you’re not comfortable you personally have the necessary rights, ask. If the rights-holder isn’t comfortable, they will ask”?

Remember, the rule for open source licenses is to try to make it work. Same goes for CC licenses – I always ask abusers to fix things, I never start with a legal threat. So that’s as precise as I need for my own use of CC licenses.

- We all benefit from open content that has been released as such by its owners. I’d like the rules for explicitly asking for permission to use that content (as Simon notes is what CC is really about) be defined as simply and crisply as possible.
- Defining commercialness seems very difficult. And there is certainly no consensus today. (See endless threads on flickr for example.)
- But it could be done–though I suspect there would be little consensus of a broad community.
- I would see such a definition being in the vein of allowable uses by stock photo sites–basically, you can’t just take the whole work and resell it.
- I’m not sure how this maps for different types of content. I see the “not post a RedMonk blog entry about X on X’s site.” But how to distinguish from incidental use of a random photo in a presentation by employee of X at a conference?
- But if you don’t, you’re back to essentially all usage being commercial.

CC licenses are not so much about defining exact terms for a bilateral relationship (although they can do that, and well enough that Gordon, Stephen and others see them as playing that role) as defining the bounds of a sharing community. As I tweeted at the time of the original conversation, the CC license is there to tell you when you have to go ask for rights as much as it is there to give you rights.

So the non-commercial clause has massive value, becuase it tells your community the point at which they need to go ask for rights. As soon as it’s not clear rights are available, go ask. People who use CC licenses are usually delighted to help.