Clarification about license compliance for embedded profiles

[carlosame]

Your color profiles include a copyright notice and an explicit mention of the license, in the profiles themselves. My question is: if I embed one of your profiles in an image, keeping the profile unaltered is enough to comply with the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license, or do I need to do anything else?

My plan is to merge code that uses your profiles in my Apache-licensed EchoSVG project, see css4j/echosvg#112, and I'd like to know whether the generated images would be safe (users may generate images that contain confidential information, and obviously those cannot be made share-alike).

Please note that I'm NOT asking you to change the license, just checking what your interpretation of that license is.

[KelSolaar]

Not a lawyer but a software license doesn't typically affect the license of images it processes. Think about a photographer using Darktable, its photographs do not become GPL 3.0 because they have been processed with it. The copyrights remain to the photographer. What the software license affects is the license of the surrounding software.

[manticorp]

Not a lawyer but a software license doesn't typically affect the license of images it processes. Think about a photographer using Darktable, its photographs do not become GPL 3.0 because they have been processed with it. The copyrights remain to the photographer. What the software license affects is the license of the surrounding software.

While this is true, more often than not the ICC profile is embedded in the image itself. This is different, as Darktable wouldn't be embedded and distributed in the actual image in question.

[carlosame]

a software license doesn't typically affect the license of images it processes. [...] What the software license affects is the license of the surrounding software.

CC-SA isn't really a software license, and a profile is more like an input document. Although shipping a CC-SA document with an Apache-licensed software is a risk (even with a copy of the license and all the NOTICE Files), the real danger is for the images with an embedded profile: you may consider that the images are a derivative work or that they aren't. And there are strong hints that this project is aligned with the former interpretation (although never said explicitly).

Therefore I'm replacing the profiles in my PR with a safer alternative (plain CC license). So far, the new profiles pass the test suite so I'm fine.

[KelSolaar]

Not a lawyer but a software license doesn't typically affect the license of images it processes. Think about a photographer using Darktable, its photographs do not become GPL 3.0 because they have been processed with it. The copyrights remain to the photographer. What the software license affects is the license of the surrounding software.

While this is true, more often than not the ICC profile is embedded in the image itself. This is different, as Darktable wouldn't be embedded and distributed in the actual image in question.

Whether it is embedded does not matter: Once you have taken a picture, in most countries, by default and unless you signed a contract stipulating otherwise, you own the copyrights of the work you produced irrespective of production mean. Whether he used a Canon, Nikon or Sony camera which embeds proprietary metadata for software processing the author retains the rights to the image.

Likewise, the ICC profile creator retains the rights to his profile unless stipulated otherwise. The license terms of the photograph cannot ever change the license terms of the ICC profile, irrespective of whether the profile is a sidecar or embedded into the image.

What does effectively matter are distribution rights: If the ICC profile is licensed under terms that prevents its free distribution, the distributor might then violate the license terms without explicit agreement from the profile creator.

ICC recommends licensing profiles under terms that permit free distribution to avoid such issues: https://www.color.org/faqs.xalter

Q. Are profiles copyrighted?

A. ICC has no formal position on the use of profiles. It is really up to the software vendor. However, since the software vendor effectively holds copyright on the profile (which is specified in a tag) the licence to use their software permits them to prohibit public posting of profiles. One of their motivations could be that if such profiles could be freely exchanged it would limit the number of sales of their software. Also, from a technical perspective it is dangerous to publish such profiles for many devices. A profile for a printer, for example, is only valid for the substrate and inks for which it was made and it is for this reason that few device manufacturers publish profiles for their devices.

Any ICC profile is produced using proprietary software. All ICC define is the nature of the tags, which tags are mandatory and which are optional, and how the data should be defined in them. The contents of the tables are vendor specific and each uses different algorithms. It is this that gives the vendor something which they can copyright

Q. What are the licensing terms for ICC-created profiles?

A. Where ICC is the copyright owner of a profile, the following license terms apply unless stated otherwise:

"This profile is made available by the International Color Consortium, and may be copied, distributed, embedded, made, used, and sold without restriction. Altered versions of this profile shall have the original identification and copyright information removed and shall not be misrepresented as the original profile."

ICC recommends that other profile creators and copyright owners adopt a similar wording for profiles that are intended to be freely distributed. See the Profile Registration page for more details.

Some ICC-provided profiles are subject to different terms of use, which are identified on the download page for the profile. There are also general terms and conditions for the use of third-party and ICC-provided resources on the ICC site. These terms and conditions can be seen here.

[ellelstone]

Hi All,

Initially I tried public domain for the ICC profiles, but a Krita dev said that wouldn't work if any of the profiles were included with Krita for distribution, for some technical reason that I don't remember.

For the record, I absolutely do not want to claim that someone's photograph is derivative and hence CC-SA if one of my ICC profiles is embedded in someone else's work. I would not use my own ICC profiles if I thought that was the case.

My intention is that you the artist can do anything at all with your own photograph/artwork/etc as of course your work belongs to you. Sell it. Share it. Post it on the web. Modify it. Composite it. Publish it. Put it up for auction. Whatever you want to do with your work, it's YOUR work, NOT MINE.

My intention is that embedding my ICC profile in your work does not change your claim to your work one little bit and certainly does not give me any claim to your work. All my ICC profile does - all I intend it to do - is tell your ICC profile color management system how to send colors to the screen, in a way that coheres more closely to the various ICC profile specs, as sadly a lot of ICC profiles out there take a lot of liberties with the specs for different color spaces.

My intention with the CC-SA license is that if you modify my ICC profile and then distribute it, embedded in an image or not, you need to let people know that it is no longer the original ICC profile that my software created.

Having stated my intention wrt CC-SA, I will give the standard disclaimer "I am not a lawyer".

If you want to use my profiles, and you don't like my profile license, you can download and easily modify my code, put in whatever copyright you want, recompile, and make your own ICC profiles to embed in your images.

Of course if you distribute your modified CODE you need to respect my CODE license, which is not the same as the license in the ICC profiles produced by my code, or by your modified code.

I'd be happy to change the license on my ICC profiles if the collective group here comes up with a better license that makes everyone happy, including myself! - it has to be a reasonable license! and should fit with Debian free-libre license requirements (if Debian allows it as free/libre almost everyone allows it). I know that's a tall order! You might end up deciding that CC-SA really is the best option.

It is entirely possible to make an ICC profile license that DOES say "If you use this license I get to control your work". Rumor has it that one of the early (and still widely available because it was embedded in an awful lot of images) sRGB ICC profiles had a license (that I've never managed to track down - it isn't embedded in the profile itself) that forbade it being used on anything except Microsoft computers. But I can't find anything in CC-SA that says "if you embed this profile in your image, your image is automatically itself CC-SA."

Three links that might be useful:

• https://libguides.ccga.edu/CC/adaptations
• https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ14.pdf
• https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/ShareAlike_interpretation

My understanding - and again I am not a lawyer - is that CC-SA applies to "derivative works" or "adapted works". Your photograph, your artwork - these are NOT derivative of my embedded ICC profile! Nor are they adaptations of my embedded ICC profile. Nobody frames an ICC profile and hangs it in a gallery or puts it up on the living room wall (well, if I could figure out how, I might, but I probably like ICC profiles more than most people :) ).

But if you modify my profile, that is a derivative/adapted work.

Best regards,
Elle

[carlosame]

My understanding - and again I am not a lawyer - is that CC-SA applies to "derivative works" or "adapted works". Your photograph, your artwork - these are NOT derivative of my embedded ICC profile!

IANAL either, but as @KelSolaar points out, even if the image isn't a derived work it still contains your profile, and one cannot restrict the "freedoms" that the CC-SA gives to it.

My intention is that you the artist can do anything at all with your own photograph/artwork/etc as of course your work belongs to you. Sell it. Share it. Post it on the web. Modify it. Composite it. Publish it. Put it up for auction.

The advocates of "copyleft" licenses often say that "you can even sell your copyleft-licensed item" (for example in the ShareAlike interpretation link that you give) and that's true, however there are things that you cannot do, and that's imposing restrictions that affect the CC-SA "freedoms".

For example you cannot impose an embargo. I mean you cannot give your photograph affected by CC-SA to journalists and tell them to "not publish it until September 1st". Because once you give the item to someone else, regardless of it being sold or given for free, the CC-SA freedoms apply.

And as said above, even if the photograph isn't a derivative work it still contains your CC-SA item inside. Maybe not an actual issue if heard in a court, but still potentially problematic.

[ellelstone]

I put these profiles and code on github for other people's benefits. But sometimes real life has to take priority over online activities and participation in free/libre software. My apologies, but I no longer have the time or energy to continue ownership of and responsibility for my ICC profiles repository.

Anyone who is interested in taking over ownership of my github ICC profile repository, please send me a private email.

Best regards,
Elle

[rodlie]

Sorry for the noise (I sub to all message in this repo for some reason 😄 ), but an image file is a bundle. The profile is not attached to the image (it's in the header) and does not affect the usage of the image. So, by that logic the license on the profile is irrelevant.

But, if you want to solve this issue once and for all just dual license the profiles under public domain and whatever CC license is used today.

Best regards (and thanks for the profiles).

[ellelstone]

Hi @rodlie - I finally remembered the problem the krita dev had with public domain - not every country acknowledges the whole "public domain" thing.

Maybe I'm overlooking something, but it seems to me that by the logic used in some of the comments in this thread, any license whatsoever for the profile would somehow subject the entire image to that license. So examples of what you all would consider a "good" ICC profile license would be nice.

Here are Debian accepted licenses:
https://wiki.debian.org/DFSGLicenses

Here's OpenSuse, which has links to Fedora:
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Accepted_licences

[carlosame]

I put these profiles and code on github for other people's benefits. But sometimes real life has to take priority over online activities and participation in free/libre software. My apologies, but I no longer have the time or energy to continue ownership of and responsibility for my ICC profiles repository.

Hope that you rethink this. I believe that your profiles are excellent work, and that's why I care about a licensing that can serve the needs of as many people as possible.

Anyone who is interested in taking over ownership of my github ICC profile repository, please send me a private email.

FWIW I'd also be more than happy if anyone replaced me in my open source repositories, but unfortunately that's not going to happen. 🙂

Maybe I'm overlooking something, but it seems to me that by the logic used in some of the comments in this thread, any license whatsoever for the profile would somehow subject the entire image to that license. So examples of what you all would consider a "good" ICC profile license would be nice.

The problem is the "SA" part, that is, the copyleft part. Although your interpretation of the license is great, and much better than I anticipated, in the end there is no way that I could convince the average corporate lawyer that their company should use software that generates images with such a profile. And that's a concern for my Apache-licensed software. Sorry if I failed to explain what the issue was.

[ellelstone]

Anyone have any concrete suggestions for licenses for the profiles that you all feel comfortable would satisfy corporate lawyers and such, while also satisfying the requirements of mainstream linux distributions?

[carlosame]

Anyone have any concrete suggestions for licenses for the profiles that you all feel comfortable would satisfy corporate lawyers and such, while also satisfying the requirements of mainstream linux distributions?

My suggestion, just a suggestion that may or may not work for you, is the following:

"This profile is made available by Elle Stone, and may be copied, distributed, embedded, used, and sold without any restriction other than the following: Altered versions of this profile shall credit the original copyright information for attribution purposes, but otherwise shall not be misrepresented as the original profile."

Otherwise, CC-BY or anything non-copyleft. But in any case this isn't something that should be decided in a hurry; there is plenty of time to think about this.

[rodlie]

Anyone have any concrete suggestions for licenses for the profiles that you all feel comfortable would satisfy corporate lawyers and such, while also satisfying the requirements of mainstream linux distributions?

What about something like what I.C.C. uses:
https://doc.qt.io/QtForMCUs-2.8/qtgui-attribution-icc-srgb-color-profile.html

Copyright International Color Consortium, 2015

This profile is made available by the International Color Consortium, and may be copied,
distributed, embedded, made, used, and sold without restriction. Altered versions of this
profile shall have the original identification and copyright information removed and
shall not be misrepresented as the original profile.

License is good enough for Qt (GPL/LGPL).

I bundle profiles with this license in my software