[cc-community] More discussion on NC

Andres Guadamuz a.guadamuz at ed.ac.uk
Sun Oct 10 15:25:33 EDT 2010


On 10/10/2010 16:32, drew Roberts wrote:


> Freedom translates well pretty much in most places. Certainly in the worlds of
> culture, art, music,&  etc.

Freedom is a nice word, but why begrudge the freedom of those of us who 
prefer to licence under an NC licence?

> Well, some of the leading lights in the Free Software world see it your way.
> You might want to wonder why some of us playing in the non-software world but
> with a history in the Free Software space want Freedom outside of the
> software world.

Again, I am not saying NC should always prevail, but people are voting 
with their feet and making conscious decisions.

> Your publisher? Were there no other publishers? Was it not possible to self
> publish?

Not in the UK. An one cannot publish an academic book as 
self-publishing. Well, one can, but it has no academic recognition 
whatsoever. Academic publishing still relies on the gate keepers.

I am also very grateful that the publishers were willing to release 
under a Creative Commons licence at all, and NC was the only way they 
could recoup their investment.

> Normally this just boils down to the "I can't make enough money if I go the
> Freedom route." There are plenty still spouting this line in the software
> world too. Is this your real argument here?

No, I am just noting that people's reasons for choosing NC are varied, 
and should not be reduced to narrow ideological decisions about what 
people should and should not do with their works.

> I can see why it is so popular too. And why ARR is so popular. This popularity
> does not make it *right* though. I feel that the harm being done to our
> society in the name of copyright is beyond what most of us can imagine. And
> the push is always on to make matters worse.

I have to disagree, I don't see ARR as wrong either, some people choose 
that route. It's their freedom to choose whichever licensing scheme 
their prefer, I do not think that people who publish under ARR or NC are 
wrong, that is perhaps where we disagree the most. Yes, I know I tend to 
favour wishy-washy "let's all get together", but I cannot tell someone 
who chooses to release proprietary software that they are wrong, or that 
someone who chooses to release under an NC licence is wrong. People have 
different reasons for doing things, it's part of their freedom to choose 
whichever licensing they prefer.

Andres

-- 
Andres Guadamuz
SCRIPT Law and Technology Centre
University of Edinburgh
Old College, South Bridge
Edinburgh, EH8 9YL

+44 131 6509699
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc

Blog
http://www.technollama.co.uk/

SCRIPTed Journal of Law, Technology and Society
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/script-ed

The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
Scotland, with registration number SC005336.




More information about the cc-community mailing list