[cc-community] Benjamin Mako Hill on Creative Commons

Mark Havenner laveaux at poorteacher.com
Mon Aug 1 15:28:46 EDT 2005


Actually what you said clears some things up for me. The question I have,
and perhaps this is the real core of the matter, how does a license dictate
what is an appropriate level of providing a source? 

In my book, as long as the JPG is available, that is enough. A license can't
say quality must be .TIFF, .PSD, or .EPS. For one, some of those formats are
proprietary and the license would be inadvertently promoting a piece of
software and additionally not everyone has access to that software. There
are many JPGs that are a higher quality than poorly rendered TIFFs. Whereas,
GIF or JPG are universally readable, but can be lower quality. 

And what if I imbed my images at a high resolution in Quark or InDesign?
This is a required source for most printing presses and publishers, but
certainly not everyone has those programs (just money-blowing designers like
myself), so how would that, in any way, promote intellectual freedom?

And what about text? A popular source would be MS Word, but again you are
requiring a proprietary piece of software. If it's txt, then what's the
difference between .rtf and say copying and pasting off an unlocked PDF?

If that is truly the distinction and where CC falls short, I don't see how
CC or anyone else can apply those concepts to creative works, apart from
simply requiring that 'a' source be available.

-----Original Message-----
From: cc-community-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org
[mailto:cc-community-bounces at lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Rob Myers
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2005 12:51 PM
To: cc-community at lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [cc-community] Benjamin Mako Hill on Creative Commons


On 1 Aug 2005, at 19:34, Mark Havenner wrote:


This is an active area of debate. :-)

If I wish to remix a song, the original multi-track recording or the  
original sequencer file and samples are better than a low-resolution  
Mp3. "Source" here is a structured, editable, high-quality version of  
the flattened final version.

If I wish to remix a digital image, the original multi-layer XCF file  
or vector SVG file are better than a low-resolution JPEG. Again,  
structured, high quality source of use to an artist.

For text, an editable LaTeX or document file is better than  
unformatted ASCII or uneditable reader formats for the same reasons.

If I have a physical painting, the preparatory sketches will be part  
of the "source" (in my opinion), and will need providing. I make this  
argument from my own experience as an artist and my understanding of  
the benefits of providing source in software (education, re- 
creatability, derivability).

When providing my work online, I include discarded and preparatory  
work in the archive of images. I believe this is the right thing to do.

Transparent (non-drm), editable (structured) and source (re-makeable)  
may be different concepts. CC only requires the first, FDL probably  
requires the second. I'm not sure that even the GPL really requires  
the third for cultural works.


- Rob.

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