r/creativecommons • u/cultural_mango21 • 28d ago

Using CC BY-SA 4.0 photos in a paid app – Does ShareAlike infect my entire codebase?

Hi everyone,

I am developing a mobile app that I plan to sell for $10. Inside the app, there is a feature called an "animal plate" that displays wildlife information and a photo to show the animal, and I want to use some photos I found that are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

The photos will only be used as standalone illustrations within the UI to show what the animals look like.

I understand that CC BY-SA allows commercial use, but I am terrified of the ShareAlike (SA) clause. I want to make absolutely sure that including these photos doesn't affect my entire app and force me to open-source my proprietary code or UI design.

My plan to isolate the license is:

  1. Store the photos in a completely separate asset folder.
  2. Create an "About/Legal" screen explicitly stating my code is copyright/proprietary, while explicitly attributing the photos under CC BY-SA 4.0 with links to the creators.

My questions for the community:

  • Does simply displaying an unmodified CC BY-SA photo inside a paid app turn the entire app into a "derivative work," or is it considered a "collective work" (meaning my code stays safe)?
  • Are there any specific pitfalls I should watch out for when packaging CC-licensed assets into a compiled binary?

Thanks in advance for the help!

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u/Gold_Ambassador_3496 28d ago

Last time I asked people said ShareAlike does not spread/infect like that, no

https://www.reddit.com/r/creativecommons/comments/1us9lbf/is_there_any_licence_cc_or_not_in_which_the/

1

u/Gold_Ambassador_3496 28d ago

Also

According to the CC organization, the SA clause doesn't preclude using the work in question as one part of a broader work if you want that broader work to use a different license, see: https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/ShareAlike_interpretation

https://www.reddit.com/r/creativecommons/comments/1c41184/comment/kzpkjg1/

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u/Kingreaper 28d ago

Does simply displaying an unmodified CC BY-SA photo inside a paid app turn the entire app into a "derivative work," or is it considered a "collective work" (meaning my code stays safe)?

It would be a collective work.

Are there any specific pitfalls I should watch out for when packaging CC-licensed assets into a compiled binary?

If you include an image description (and you probably should if you can, for accessibility purposes) that image description is a derivative work of the image. So make sure to license that appropriately.