I am not sure if this has been covered : what about a creative commons license that is non-profit ? As in it works similarly to the creative commons non-commercial license but allows the user to recover costs of distribution of material ?

The reason I suggest this, is that in many developing nations people still make extensive use of hard copy versions of freely available soft-copy data/products etc. There is a cost to make these hard copies. As I understand it the non-commercial license does not allow the exchange of any monies. So by reproducing a work that is under creative commons non-commercial they lose money, this often means that that these valuable works cannot get to those who need them as very few people can absorb the costs of reproduction.

Whereas something along the line of ‘non-profit’ could mean that the organisation is allowed to ‘sell’ the work only so far as to recover the cost of reproduction, no profit or extra charges are allowed. I realise this could be used incorrectly but I feel it would at least allow NGOs etc to be more willing to reproduce these works that will help people. The would do this because they can do so legally without bankrupting them or taking away money from other activities, which is important in these tough funding times.

An immediate example would be the reproduction of creative commons text books, user manuals etc, which involve not cost if used in their electronic format but can amount to a fair amount of money when they are made into hard copies.

Thank you for all the hard work,
Tyrel