[cc-education] target market for license?
David Wiley
david at wiley.ed.usu.edu
Thu Aug 28 10:56:04 EDT 2003
I want to respond in reverse here; please forgive.
> There's already plenty of computer software in the world that's available
> under a restrictive license. My wife has a copy of Microsoft Word that's
> licensed for educational use only. It's proprietary, not free, and there's no
> reason CC should help Microsoft to promote the software or debug the license.
This is an apple / oranges comparison. M$ Word is licensed only for
educational use only. cc.edu material gives users license (see
http://creativecommons.org/learn/licenses/fullrights) to copy the work,
to distribute it, to display or perform it publicly, to make digital
public performances of it (e.g., webcasting), and to shift the work into
another format as a verbatim copy, as long as they attribute, stay
noncommercial, allow share-alike derivative works, and only make
educational uses. VERY large difference between M$'s so-called
educational use license.
>This strikes me as silly, but if they want to do something that silly, they
>can write their own license. Similarly, a dedicated zionists could write
>a political tract and release it under a license that only allowed jews to copy
>it, and a palestinian activist could do something similar, for arabs only.
>
>The question is not whether there's anyone who wants a certain licensing scheme.
>The question is whether CC should lend its name and legal expertise to it. If
>people don't want to contribute to the world of free information, that's their
>business, but I don't see why they deserve any help with it. The "Commons" in
>Creative Commons has to mean something. It's not possible to say one is putting
>something in the commons and yet denying access to soldiers, politicians, arabs, jews,
>or people who talk on their cell phones while driving SUVs.
>
>
Overstating for effect is generally my sole territory, but you've done
it well here. =) Your encouragement of everyone writing their own
license would only significantly increase the confusion you wanted to
avoid in your last post. It also creates the same troubles OPL did,
namely the creation and evangelism of licenses by people with no formal
legal background.
Providing one common, highly visible, legally sound license for people
who want to encourage education (but nothing else, for whatever reason)
should minimize the confusion you mentioned last post, but maximize the
amount of content which will become available. (See
http://www.reusability.org/blogs/david/archives/000139.html for a longer
discussion.)
D
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