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

drew Roberts zotz at 100jamz.com
Mon Jan 12 08:32:53 EST 2009


Peter,

first of all, thank you.

On Monday 12 January 2009 01:34:49 Dr. Peter Troxler (Waag Society) wrote:
> 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

Surely this is the copyright holder and not necessarily the author/creator. 
Still, possibly in most cases that might interest us they are the same?

> -- they reduce transaction costs in licensing there rights to others

I don't think that I agree that these are the two things that make cc licenses 
great.
>
> CC have chosen a modular approach to this which is embedded in current
> copyright legislation and rights management practice
> - attribution is now mandatory

I still think that this is the first failing. BY should be optional and there 
should possibly be a chosen mandatory NOBY.
> - the creator can choose for SA if s/he believes in viral licensing

I still am not sure viral is the right metaphor unless you deem these 
licenses "nasty" - these sorts of copyleft licenses are rather designed to 
grand and protect Freedom.

My copyleft licensed work is not going to somehow jump to and infect your 
copyrighted work except possibly in ways which even ARR works can jump to and 
infect other works.

You would have to make the choice that using my BY-SA work in yours is 
important to you and that it is better for your to release your resulting 
work BY-SA as well rather than bother to work out some other license with me 
on the side.

> - 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".

Gotcha on the paragraph.
>
> 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.

I don't agree that this is the more important part of creativity. However, I 
personally find the "issue" of earning from Free works to be an interesting 
one.

For instance: http://packet-in.org/wiki/index.php?title=Income 
is a list of ideas I am putting together for a band I have written lyrics for.
>
> Some people make money by performing (which might be hard for a
> writer),

Since I write and don't currently perform, this is one of the problems I need 
to solve.

> 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

all the best,

drew


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