[cc-licenses] Legal Questions on CC validity and enforceability

Konstantinos Stylianou stiliamail at yahoo.gr
Wed Mar 7 16:07:50 EST 2007


Hey all,


After having done some research, there seem to be two points still 
remaining unanswered. The first one relates to the validity of the CC 
licenses with regard to para 204 of the US Copyright Law, which mandates 
that an IP license should be made in writing. Since a CC license is 
never in writing (eg. no electronic signatures are involved), does this 
mean that they are invalid?
My second point has to do with the nature of the CC licenses and in 
particular whether the CC licenses are a form of a web-wrap license, 
which have been deemed unenforceable by numerous US Court judgements 
like Ticketmaster Corp. v. Tickets.com, Inc. U.S. Dist. (C.D. Ca., 
2000), Pollstar v. Gigmania, 170 F.Supp 2d 980, Specht v. Netscape 
Communications Corp., 150 F.Supp 2d 595.  Since the CC licenses have not 
been challenged in US Courts their enforceability under US law is still 
unclear. Though a dutch court upheld a CC license, it must be noted that 
the dutch court completely disregarded the issue of  the CC licenses' 
nature.
Any ideas?
Thank so much. By the way, I'm not a US law student, so allow for any 
misinterpretation of the US law.
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