[cc-community] The case for a stricter (or more honest) CC licence than BY-NC-ND

Dr. Peter Troxler (Waag Society) peter at waag.org
Mon Jan 12 01:34:49 EST 2009


Drew:

my reasoning boils down to what Rob said earlier:
> it's generally better to concentrate on making money oneself rather
> than concentrating on making sure nobody else makes money.

or in a more elaborate way:

Creative Commons licenses are great because they achieve two things:
-- they put the author/creator in control of her/his rights
-- they reduce transaction costs in licensing there rights to others

CC have chosen a modular approach to this which is embedded in current  
copyright legislation and rights management practice
- attribution is now mandatory
- the creator can choose for SA if s/he believes in viral licensing
- the creator can choose for NC which seems to be reasonable in some  
circumstances (eg. the case of collecting societies)
- the creator can choose for ND
(and of course the creator can choose for traditional (c) and rights  
management, and should do so if s/he believes in the efficiency of  
national collecting societies)

unlike traditional (c) people who argue along the lines that  
"copyright is eternal" and copying material equals theft (which is an  
argument I don't really understand since if somebody makes a copy I'm  
still there with my original/copy), CC licensing lowers the hurdle to  
copy stuff and makes the legal dealings so much easier.

putting any CC license on a work, in a sense, conveys the message of  
"copying is OK".  putting a (c) "All rights reserved" on a work  
conveys the message of "copying is NOT OK".

but this is only the legal basis -- once we've got that out of the way  
(and I repeat: through standard licenses CC makes it easy and  
efficient to get the legalities out of the way, in most cases) -- then  
we can think about how to make money.  And IMHO that's the much more  
important part of creativity.

Some people make money by performing (which might be hard for a  
writer), others make money by selling hardcopies, other make moneys by  
working for an academic institution, others make money by attracting  
funding or sponsorship, and others decide not to make money at all.   
CC have started to collect examples of how people (still) make money  
if they offer (some of) their content to copy for free (see http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Casestudies) 
, and I bet there is more of this stuff becoming available this year.

the clue in all these cases is not to make something that others  
cannot "legally" copy, but something that other cannot copy because  
they don't have the skills, knowledge, position, network, etc. to  
create that added value their customers are willing and able to pay for.

/ Peter Troxler
/ Public Project Co-Lead
/ Creative Commons Netherlands
/ www.creativecommons.nl
/
/ c/o Waag Society :: Nieuwmarkt 4 :: 1012 CR Amsterdam :: The  
Netherlands :: +31 20 557 9898









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