[cc-licenses] Debian and Creative Commons
Terry Hancock
hancock at anansispaceworks.com
Fri Oct 13 12:47:59 EDT 2006
Henri Sivonen wrote:
> On Oct 13, 2006, at 14:39, Clive Menzies wrote:
> > So is the Debian objection based on allowing DRM locally?
This definitely *was* an issue for some people, but it appears that it
was always a misunderstanding: the earlier versions of CC licenses
apparently allowed application of DRM by the end user (though possibly
only because of the 'fair use' clause). Anyway, the 3.0 language is
quite a bit clearer on this point -- local DRM application is
unquestionably allowed now.
IMHO, this is all that is necessary, because any "free DRM" (i.e. DRM
with a publically available encryption key and encryption tool) presents
no problem for the user, and "non-free DRM" (tool or key is not freely
available) is a copyleft-breaker (whether or not parallel distribution
of non-DRM form is provided). What little hassle remains in supporting
DRM platforms should be regarded as a property of those platforms, not
the free-licensed content that insists on transparent distribution.
> My understanding is that the remaining one issue that Debian has is
> that Debian wants both CC-by 3.0 and CC-by-sa 3.0 to allow the
> distribution of copies that have TPM applied to them if the
> distributor also distributes a non-TPMed version for another
> platform. (The non-TPMed version will in practice be for another
> platform, because if the platform for which the TPMed version was
> targeted didn't require TPM, there'd be no need to apply TPM.)
>
> I disagree with Debian on this point. I very much appreciate Debian's
> effort in getting the other issues Debian had addressed.
I guess you probably meant "Creative Commons' effort"? But anyway, kudos
to both.
> (Note that discriminating against platforms that are designed to
> subvert the freedoms that a license provides is not discrimination
> against particular people or fields of endeavor unless you count
> license subversion as a field of endeavor or think that copyleft
> licenses should not discriminate against people who have a moral
> conviction against copyleft as an inherent trait of their persona.)
Thanks for an extremely concise and readable summary!
Cheers,
Terry
--
Terry Hancock (hancock at AnansiSpaceworks.com)
Anansi Spaceworks http://www.AnansiSpaceworks.com
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