[cc-community] Identi.ca - my new Creative-Commons-enabled microblogging service

Matthew J. Agnello matt.agnello at gmail.com
Mon Jul 7 14:37:11 EDT 2008


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Being able to change the license would be nice, but as Terry mentioned
it would be burdensome to use copyleft on what really amounts to
globally accessible wall graffiti, offered up and forgotten about.

Currently, Twitter claims no ownership of your content and doesn't put
a license on it. In its TOS, it states that it "encourage users to
contribute their creations to the public domain or consider
progressive licensing terms"[1], so essentially you retain full
copyright of the posts. (I recently noted on my blog that my Twitter
posts are BY.) I think Twitter's model is a good model to follow. It
allows some freedom in deciding which license you want to use, albeit
without any way to mark that on your Twitter page.

However, BY does reflect the practical outcome of what microblogging
services tend to do: people release their 140 character blurbs to the
ether, and whoever wants to read it reads it. And if there were some
creative project that brought together a bunch of posts from different
Twitter users, I'm sure very few Les Twitterables would send a Cease
and Desist letter. So you could certainly argue that BY would be the
best license for microblogging. However, something in me still feels
that forcing a BY license on a user would be wrong. I would rather see
someone gladly not enforce their copyright than be forced to use a
specific license.

I'd recommend making BY the default but offering more options,
including full copyright and whichever copyleft licenses make the most
sense. For me, BY is fine; I really just want more data portability
out of identi.ca, since I currently use Twitter. So, keep up the great
work, Evan! Looking forward to all identi.ca has to offer.

Best,
// Matt

[1] http://twitter.com/tos
- --
Matthew J. Agnello
http://hungryfilmmaker.com/


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On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 7:00 PM, drew Roberts <zotz at 100jamz.com> wrote:

> On Thursday 03 July 2008 21:09:10 Nathan Yergler wrote:
> > On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 5:53 PM, drew Roberts <zotz at 100jamz.com> wrote:
> > > On Thursday 03 July 2008 18:46:09 Terry Hancock wrote:
> > >> drew Roberts wrote:
> > >> > On Wednesday 02 July 2008 15:59:03 Rich Vázquez wrote:
> > >> >> When you sign up, you have to check:
> > >> >> My text and files are available under       Creative Commons
> > >> >> Attribution 3.0 except this private data: password, email address,
> IM
> > >> >> address, phone number. http://identi.ca/main/register
> > >> >
> > >> > I do not think this answers the question(s) I asked.
> > >>
> > >> ISTM that it does...
> > >>
> > >> The site is all CC-By and you have to agree to this to use it. Don't
> > >> like CC-By? Don't use the service.
> > >
> > > Terry, not to be contrary, but in fact, it doesn't. From my original
> > > post:
> > >
> > > [So, I went searching and from the site:
> > >
> > > "Unless otherwise specified, contents of this site are copyright by the
> > > contributors and available under the Creative Commons Attribution
> 3.0."]
> > >
> > > So, the site puts forward the possibility of contents under a different
> > > license. I am asking about the mechanics of this and not getting an
> > > answer to the questions I am asking.
> > >
> > > Do I have to manually change the license each time I post? Can I set
> this
> > > as a user preference? What?
> >
> > I don't speak for identi.ca, only as a user.  What I've observed is
> > that it does not offer an opportunity to change your license, either
> > on a per post basis or as a preference.
>
> Thank you for this info, I find it useful. If anyone knows this to be
> mistaken, I would find the correction usefule as well.
> >
> > > Or is the language misleading and in fact, is BY the only allowable
> > > license on the site as you suggest?
> >
> > I guess my interpretation of that language did not match yours; I
> > assumed it was the hypothetical "otherwise" -- as in, perhaps there's
> > an image that gets used on the front page, etc, that is not CC
> > licensed.  I suppose the "otherwise noted" could also refer to the
> > copyright status.  That is, where otherwise noted the copyright is
> > held by the site creator (not contributor) *and* it's available under
> > the CC BY 3.0 license.
>
> This:
>
> http://identi.ca/doc/privacy
>
> "Almost all the text and files that users upload to this site is available
> under the site license (see the license block at the bottom of this page)."
>
> makes it fairly that they really want cc BY but still seems to leave open
> the
> possibility that a user can put uptext or files with some other license.
> >
> > >> Personally, I think this is fine for the purpose: it makes no sense to
> > >> apply a copyleft on such tiny works as the overhead would be
> burdensome.
> > >>
> > >> But of course, if you wanted to use a different license, you won't be
> > >> happy with these terms.
> > >>
> > >> Cheers,
> > >> Terry
> > >
> > > all the best,
> > >
> > > drew
>
> all the best,
>
> drew
>
>
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