The non-commercial CC
license makes it a gift with a catch, or actually it makes it not a
gift at all in some sense.
I disagree. We don't usually offer a gift to someone and expect the
recipient to sell it. That's not a catch, that's just an expectation
of civilised behaviour.
"non-commercial use or
distribution only" means non-free
I'm not sure the 'freedom' to make a living from someone else's work
without contributing back is something that licences should
encourage. I'm not talking about remixers or samplers here - people
who take the work and add something to it. I'm talking about the
people who would sell the work as it is without adding any value, and
keep the money for themselves.
The major commercial Linux distributions don't allow this sort of
behaviour any more. They use things like trademark law, or dual
licences, to prevent it.
In the case of music, if someone wanted to distribute a CC'd licenced
piece commercially, paying the artist a fair cut, then all they'd
have to do is contact the artist in the usual way and work out a
deal. What's wrong with that?
Cheers
Daniel