[cc-community] What are the disadvantages of not using CC?

Justin Morgan feedback at corfizz.com
Sat Jun 17 10:38:52 EDT 2006


Thank you for your response. I wondered if there was any reason,  
perhaps, that a notice not supported by a license was somehow not  
legally acceptable, or would not stand up in court.

On 15 Jun 2006, at 19:50, Terry Hancock wrote:

> Justin Morgan wrote:
>>  This is probably a very basic question. Suppose somebody
>>  wishes to allow someone to copy their work and distribute it,
>>  provided they receive attribution and that nobody changes their  
>> work.
>>  Suppose they simply put their work online with a notice that says
>>  "You can use this stuff however you want, provided you don't change
>>  it and that you credit me for each use".
>
> In principle, that will work okay, but it's easy to mis-speak, and  
> it's
> potentially harder for the reader to find and understand the terms
> on which the work is offered. That increases the chance that they
> will make assumptions -- which may not be the ones you intended.
>
>>  My question is, why is putting a notice like that (which is  
>> obviously
>>  much easier than using a CC license) legally disadvantageous? In
>>  other words, how does applying the cc-by-nd license differ from
>>  putting a simple friendly notice on the site?
>
> The CC license badge provides visual clarity (the new, more license-
> explicit versions will be even better for this).
>
> The RDF code allows search engines to find your content based on
> license-discriminating searches (this is VERY useful for readers,  
> because
> they may only be interested in works that they can reproduce).
>
> Finally, CC has thought through any legal details in the license, so
> you have a much more airtight license, should there be any possibility
> of misinterpretation. Of course, "By-ND" is a fairly simple case,  
> so this
> isn't as much of a win as it is with "By-SA" for example, but it still
> matters.
>
> Also, I question the claim that writing your own license is
> "easier" than using the pre-prepare CC material (which is
> awfully easy to do, IMHO).  *I* certainly find ready-made
> licensing materials to be a big time-saver.
>
> Cheers,
> Terry
>
> -- 
> Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
> Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
>
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