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港大論文 Amazon 有售

港大圖書館論文疑似被侵權事件出現羅生門，港大話論文唔可以用作商業用途，但取用論文嘅公司聲稱由去年11月至今年1月期間所取用論文時標明以 CC-BY 3.0 授權 （即係可作商業用途）。[1]

由於呢啲版權嘢觸發我花生興緻，我就隨便查咗啲資料。照表面嚟睇，我好難相信港大方面完全冇做錯嘢。一來，對家嘅「出版公司」其實係由個科技創業家成立嘅[2]，睇佢嘅 online profile 望落去都幾正路。可能大家未必知道，好多科技撚對 licensing terms 非常熟悉，因為做軟件開發嘅人，九成九都會用到開源軟件，每一隻都可以有唔同嘅 license，所以認識授權條款幾乎係軟件開發者職責之一。喺美國科技撚嘅圈子裡面，蓄意違反授權條款係好大罪嚟，會變過街老鼠嘅。所以，如果出版社唔肯 back down，佢哋應該真係有理由相信自己取得授權去翻印。

二來，我嘗試查返港大圖書館網頁關於論文授權嘅資料，而家某個版面寫住用 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 [3]，但用返 Bing 個 cache 睇返幾日前嘅版本，係寫住 CC BY-NC 3.0 :0) 至於早幾個月佢係咩樣貌我就不得而知了，archive.org 咁啱冇得睇。一個會隨便修改授權條款嘅機構，如果之前真係「唔覺意」用錯條款而容許商業用途，真係一啲都唔出奇。尤其是當港大嘅人好可能對 Creative Commons 嗰堆條文一知半解，然後指示 IT 去修改網頁嘅時候有啲溝通問題，加起上嚟就會亂到七彩了。

本身 Creative Commons 都係一樣幾令人混淆嘅嘢嚟。N 年前 Richard Stallman 已經批評過佢呢個問題：

「They don't encourage people to look at these different licences and think about them individually. Instead they promote the brand "Creative Commons". So you'll see lots of people saying "Let's use a Creative Commons licence for this", or "please contribute to our project, we're using a Creative Commons licence". And they think they have told you something substantial, and many people read that and they think that they have been told something substantial, and in fact, they have been told nothing - about what freedoms users will have in using that work. 」[4]

我有理由懷疑港大處理呢樣嘢嗰陣發生過類似嘅情況 :0)

至於授權條款係咪改得架呢？ 坊間嘅講法各異。如果睇法律教科書，呢類授權應該係屬於 "bare license"，基本上收回授權只需要 "reasonable notice" ，即係要通知對方並給予合理時間對方應對。對方可能可以提出 estoppel 反駁，大意就係「你講咗唔算數，而家我蒙受損失，咁點計數先？」

事實上，使用免費授權協議嘅人好少會無端端收回授權，因為就算你喺網頁大大隻字公告，但由於內容係可以免費轉發，對方未必收到通知，而佢收到通知嘅時候，如果一早已經用緊你嘅內容，佢有可能提出 estoppel 去繼續使用。喺網絡世界，發佈咗嘅資訊真係「潑出去嘅水」，覆水難收，反爾覆爾，更加係會影響自己聲譽，得不償失。

不過為面子關係，真係唔排除港大真係會認真打官司。如果真係咁做，花生價格就上漲嘞，因為上面講述嘅法律教科書理論就可以喺法庭一試真假 （雖然大部份時間教科書嘅嘢都係啱嘅，但好多時法庭判決都會出乎意料⋯）。我冇認真查過美國有冇先例，但印像中早幾年 hea 搵搵過好似冇。

至於各位被「盜用」畢業論文嘅港大朋友，我真係恭喜你呀 :0) 如果最後發現係港大犯錯，你哋可以告鳩佢架 XDD (maybe?)

-----

[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/law-crime/article/2080182/publisher-insists-it-had-licence-sell-university-hong-kong
[2] https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-youmans-205b714
[3] http://etd.lib.hku.hk/
[4] https://web.archive.org/web/20200110070119/https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/transcripts/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html


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