[cc-licenses] Universal Copyleft License [was: Mapping of license restrictions (CC - GFDL compatibility)]
Rob Myers
rob at robmyers.org
Sun Dec 11 06:00:59 EST 2005
On 10 Dec 2005, at 22:38, drew Roberts wrote:
> I don't think the point of the post was that the person had
> specifically
> chosen the license to frustrate specifically you.
My hugely inflated ego aside, I was trying to explain why I might
want to mis-treat the work rather than simply use it in an
incompatible way. :-)
> I think it was that they
> specifically chose the license to frustrate anyone who wants to do
> what you
> want to do with their work. They don't want the things done which
> you want to
> do. It has nothing to do with prior misuse as I read it.
If I am motivated by a general desire to mis-use the work rather than
a legitimate need to use the work that is accidentally frustrated by
the license, I will simply exploit whichever license is used in order
to cause mischief.
For example I can take a Wikipedia FDL article, produce a derivative
and add the words "wikipedia sux0rs!" as cover text (I hasten to add
that I personally love Wikipedia, this is just an example), and the
derivative is made both offensive *and* unusable to Wikipedia.
Incidentally, this is another reason why CC's "compatibility" is so
problematic. Under the FDL you can make derivatives of a work
incompatible with the original work if they are trying to mis-use FDL
as a general purpose copyleft license rather than as a computer
manual license that allows you to attach un-editable political texts.
For Wikipedia, FDL can be made incompatible with *itself*. This is
something CC cannot solve with a multi-license facade or a BY-SA
backdoor.
- Rob.
More information about the cc-licenses
mailing list