[cc-licenses] Stallman On CC

Rob Myers rob at robmyers.org
Wed Feb 8 14:05:52 EST 2006


On 8 Feb 2006, at 17:10, Alexandre Dulaunoy wrote:

> "You may  not use this work  to advertise for or  promote anything but
> the work you create from it."
>
> It's still a  NC-like license... so not free by  default.  So not like
> the GPL ;-)

I agree that CC-Sampling is not Free. But CC-Sampling allows  
commercial exploitation of the work *for* and *as* work, and so is  
not like NC. It gives sampling/remixing/mash-up practitioners the  
"freedom" to use the work as they would expect, as the GPL gives  
hackers and other computer users the "freedom" to use the work as  
they would expect.

The draft of the GPL version 3 allows licensors to add conditions to  
the license, one of which is that derivatives may not use the  
licensor's name in -er- advertising the product. :-)

> Free Art License is a free license and there is no restriction like NC
> or ND. Broader  access is permitted with the  Free Art License... than
> the restrictive CCs.

But the FAL is domain specific. It does not help art get access to  
broader culture, or allow broader culture access to art. It would not  
help Andy Warhol, Jeff Koons, or Joy Garnett. CC-Sampling would help  
Negativland.

> Just my IMHO,

Oh, me too. :-)


On 8 Feb 2006, at 17:49, Jamie Jensen wrote:

> Actually, the GPL is only secondarily a social contract for hackers,
> if it is one at all.

The GPL is a way of restoring the social contract of hackers culture  
that Stallman regarded as being broken at the MIT AI lab by the  
intrusion of non-disclosure agreements and the "Symbolics Wars".

> Stallman rejects the Sampling license because he
> believes that prohibiting noncommercial verbatim copying is unethical.

I agree. This is why the sampling plus license is better. But IMHO  
the principle of "transformative fair use" is as fundamental to art  
and music as the principle of "hacking" is to programming.

- Rob.



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