Question: Highcharts is supposed to be an open source chart project that is free for personal use and for non-profit organisations. For non-profit organisations and individuals it is licensed under the [Creative Commons (CC) Attribution-NonCommercial licence](http://Creative%20Commons%20(CC)%20Attribution-NonCommercial%20licence)

Now I'm in a situation that I am a software developer, developing software for an eligible organisation (non-profit, non-government since highcharts does not consider government organisations to be covered). Now as I understand it, this organisation does not need a licence for Highcharts and if I was an employee of this organisation I could just use highcharts to develop a Highcharts enabled website for them. 

My questions are:

1. Is my previous assumption that if an in-house team develops the organisation's website then a licence is not required correct?
2. If I am not an employee of of that organisation but I am just contracted **as an individual** to create and deliver a Highcharts enabled website for them, do I need to purchase a licence for Highcharts?
3. If I belong to a for-profit company which is contracted to develop a to create and deliver a Highcharts enabled website to a non-profit organisation, is a licence required in that case and if yes, what kind of licence (assuming that Highcharts is not generally going to be used by that company in any other projects or services)?

Answer: 
Firstly, IANAL/IANYL.

That said, [Creative Commons says](https://creativecommons.org/faq/#does-my-use-violate-the-noncommercial-clause-of-the-licenses) that the NC licence prohibits uses that are "*primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or monetary compensation*". They go on to note that

> 
> CC's definition does not turn on the type of user: if you are a nonprofit or charitable organization, your use of an NC-licensed work could still run afoul of the NC restriction, and if you are a for-profit entity, your use of an NC-licensed work does not necessarily mean you have violated the term.
> 
> 
> 

So the answer to question one seems to me to be that it depends what the non-profit, through its development team, is using the software *for*. If it's serving the non-profit's charitable purpose, then I suspect that is a lawful use under CC BY-NC. If it's fundraising, this is arguably not lawful (*primarily intended for ... monetary compensation*). My church rents its rooms out as a commercial proposition, and that activity would almost certainly not be lawful.

Questions two and three seem easier: your primary purpose in question two, and your company's in question three, are to make money, so the use under CC BY-NC is not lawful and in both cases a commercial license will need to be purchased.

In the end, CC advises that "*you should either contact the rights holder for clarification, or search for works that permit commercial uses*".

This is an excellent illustration of why non-commercial-only licences are not considered free.
The CC-BY-NC 3.0 license has this to say about non-commercial/commercial use:

> 
> You may not exercise any of the rights granted to You in Section 3 above in any manner that is primarily intended for or directed toward commercial advantage or private monetary compensation.
> 
> 
> — [CC-BY-NC 3.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/legalcode) section 4.b
> 
> 
> 

So contrary to the Highcharts FAQ it is not relevant what the *identity* of the user is: the actual license makes no distinction between individuals and organizations, or between non-profits, government agencies, and companies.
The relevant part is the *manner* and *intent* with which the work is used. In particular, non-profit organizations sometimes do commercial things like fundraising.

What exactly non-commercial use means is left intentionally vague in the CC-BY-NC license. The Creative Commons Wiki has a page on the [NonCommerical Interpretation](https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/NonCommercial_interpretation) but that is not part of the license. For cases that are not clear you'll have to ask the licensor, though in this case they might be biased towards interpreting usage as commercial use.

It is my subjective understanding that an organization may use a CC-BY-NC work if their use is clearly not primarily commercial, e.g. as part of an awareness and information campaign. This looks different if the “awareness campaign” is actually an advertisement for a product or for a fundraiser. If an otherwise informational web page gets a “donate now!” button, that would look commercial to me. Similarly, I would interpret use as part of internal accounting software as commercial use.

While the use of the non-profit organization may be non-commercial, this does not mean that your use as part of developing the work is also non-commercial. If you are selling a web page to the organization, that looks commercial to me.

Note that this answer is purely about the concepts of the CC-BY-NC license. I am not a lawyer and cannot advise on the licensing scheme of any concrete product.