[cc-licenses] License Jurisdiction Questions

Jordan Hatcher's lists lists at twitchgamer.net
Wed May 30 04:38:18 EDT 2007


On 28 May 2007, at 17:00, cc-licenses-request at lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> Message: 5
> Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 12:05:46 +0100
> From: "Kevin Phillips (home)" <tacet at qmpublishing.com>
> Subject: [cc-licenses] License Jurisdiction Questions
> To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"
> 	<cc-licenses at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <001601c7a118$258c30a0$4e820550 at mememe>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> A quick series of questions about license impact in different  
> jurisdictions
> :
>
> I noticed recently the official licenses for us folks in the UK  
> aren't the
> same wording as those in the US.  There's an effective "translation"
> obviously because of differences in language.  Interestingly I know  
> of no cc
> project for music which offers licenses from different jurisdictions
> directly.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 10:51:09 -0400
> From: James Grimmelmann <james at grimmelmann.net>
> Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] License Jurisdiction Questions
> To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
> 	<cc-licenses at lists.ibiblio.org>
> Message-ID: <465AEC5D.6020800 at grimmelmann.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> It's not just differences in language; it's difference in law.  The
> licenses are customized to express the same ultimate meaning in
> different places' legal systems.  The "translations" are carried  
> out by
> the various international iCommons groups; whenever CC updates the
> licenses, there will be a lag while the license changes are ported  
> into
> each country where CC licenses are available.
>
> James
>
>
> ------------------------------

> ok so that makes sense, though where a legal document is concerned  
> would it
> not be more prudent to have a release in sync?  That was really the  
> point I
> was trying to make, could there not be an issue or disparity due to  
> a chorus
> of voices singing from slightly different song books?
>
> 3.0 licenses have been around for some time now haven't they?
>
> Kev



I'll second what James said, about the UK law being different.  In  
addition, the UK is not one single jurisdiction, but much like a  
federal system (such as the US) is made up of primarily three  
different jurisdictions -- Scotland, England & Wales, and Northern  
Ireland.  Whilst most of the IP law in the UK, including copyright,  
is at the UK level (i.e. applicable in all three) there are several  
differences in other law between the jurisdiction.  Scotland has  
different rules for contracts and this necessitated a different CC  
licence for Scotland.  These difference meant that the CC licence  
was  a contract, and since it is used by consumers, had to be in  
plain language to comply with the law. So in actuality, there are two  
different licences for the UK -- CC Scotland and CC E&W.  NI doesn't  
have a CC international group as of yet AFAIK.

As far as the licences being different, in a perfect world everyone  
in all of the individual jurisdictions would be able to update the  
licences all at once.  But as we are all volunteers, it just doesn't  
work that way. The Generic CC licence serves as a master template for  
everyone else to update their licences, and some are faster than others.

As far as "a chorus of voices singing from slightly different song  
books", we have that already as there is a wide variety of content  
licensed under the older CC licences already, and of course all of  
the individual jurisdictions, even if all 3.0, have different legal  
systems and so may include other rights or be enforced differently.   
For example, some Continental licences include database rights (the  
Dutch for example).

> I noticed recently the official licenses for us folks in the UK  
> aren't the
> same wording as those in the US.  There's an effective "translation"
> obviously because of differences in language.  Interestingly I know  
> of no cc
> project for music which offers licenses from different jurisdictions
> directly.
>
> For instance, I create a song and post it to ccMixter for remix, I  
> also post
> it's component parts to Kompoz.com for others to contribute.  ccMixter
> doesn't support SA licenses, so I select the defacto NC license,  
> Kompoz
> allows BY-SA so I submit the component parts there for others to  
> work on
> (ie. bass, piano, vocal, drums).  Presumably I'm ok to do this as  
> far as the
> licenses go, so far ok?  Well, my submissions to Mixter/Kompoz   
> I've done
> with the license options provided which I'm assuming are available  
> in my
> jurisdiction, yes?

AFAIK, there has been no effort to export any of the CC licences  
other than the main 6 to other jurisdictions. As my friend Andres  
says, we should have a Statute of Anne copyright licence instead of  
the "Founders Copyright".

Thanks!

--Jordan



Jordan S Hatcher
jordan at opencontentlawyer dot com
http://twitchgamer.net


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