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cc-jo - Re: [CC-Jordan] CC license elements vocabulary is its branding [was Re: مفردات الرخصة]

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Subject: CC Jordan

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Chronological Thread  
  • From: Joichi Ito <joi AT ito.com>
  • To: Ahmad Gharbeia <ahmad AT gharbeia.org>
  • Cc: "donna d.r." <donatelladellaratta AT gmail.com>, cc-jo AT lists.ibiblio.org, Diane Peters <diane AT creativecommons.org>
  • Subject: Re: [CC-Jordan] CC license elements vocabulary is its branding [was Re: مفردات الرخصة]
  • Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:12:22 +0900

This is very interesting. Thanks for starting this discussion and adding the cc-jo mailing list. It would be great if others could chime in as well.

- Joi

On Oct 27, 2009, at 23:06 , Ahmad Gharbeia wrote:

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Thank you ,Rami, for the elaborate and prompt reply. It must have taken
from your time.

رسالة Rami Olwan في 27/10/09 14:22:
Hi Ahmad,



As promised, please find below my comments after consulting with Ziad.
For your ease of reference, they are in the same order you have raised
them.



*1) **Attribution: العزو instead of نسب المصنف*

We have agreed to use نسب المصنف as it gives the proper legal meaning
and is much clearer than what you suggested as it is literal translation.

The /Jordanian Copyright Law/ does not use العزو. We have relied on the
spirit of Art 17/D that provides:

Understood.
I'm not arguing about legal relevance, and in this specific instance not
even about clarity. My concern is how these words are used in the *human
layer* of the license.

“The published works maybe used, without the consent of the author
subject to the following conditions and in the following cases:

D. Quoting paragraphs of the work into another work for purposes of
illustration, explanation, discussion, critique, cultivation, or
examination within the limits justified by these purposes and provided
that the names of the work and author are mentioned.

This is beside the point, but العزو, literally "attribution", is not
concerned with "consent", either.
It is also understood that the licensor grants this permission in
advance, which is the real benefit of the CC license.


Art 8/A of the Jordanian /Copyright Law/ uses clearly Attribution and in
Arabic نسب المصنف. The right of attribution is one of the moral rights.
Moral rights are the foundation stone of author’s right system (‘droit
d’auteur’ system) as it has come to be applied in Europe (particularly
France) rather than the Anglo- Saxon ‘copyright system’. Art 8/A
provides that:

I acknowledge this and the remaining legal basis you mention.


Also, in Arabic legal scholarship, it is not difficult to find Jordanian
and Egyptian copyright scholars refer to نسب المصنف as attributing the
name of the author to his work.

I'm not thinking "Jordanian vs. Egyptian" copyright laws at all. I'm
just arguing that maybe a justified and well-defined use of this or
similar word could facilitate the use and acceptance of the license in
its human front.

In your professional opinion, do you think it would be possible to
define what العزو (or another single suitable word) means in the context
of the license (eventually a contract itself)?
For example by stating that "in the context of this license xxx means
yyyy in such a way [...]"?

Alternatively, do you think it could be النسبة alone without the
redundant المصنف ("work")? At least where the shor-hand form of the
words are used in the license desgination, i.e. "Creative Commons:
Attribution-XXX-YYY v3.0"?




*2) **NonCommercial: غيرالتجاري instead of غير تجارية*

Your comment here is correct as we are not referring to the license, but
instead to the work. We will change it accordingly. Thank you for
raising this point.

If you take a look at what I had sent on the mailing list you'd find a
couple more of this kind of notes.



*3) **ShareAlike: المشاركةبالمثل instead of توزيعه وفق نفس الترخيص
and the
unfinalised suggested alternative المشاركة على قدم المساواة*

* *

There is no corresponding word for ShareAlike in Arabic that is used in
the Jordanian /Copyright Law/ as this concept is not found.

Again, your translation is literal and to some users (not familiar with
the word share alike in English) do not give the needed meaning.
Furthermore, most legal scholars would not know what you are taking
about if you use المشاركةبالمثل.

I ask whether Share-alike has foundation in the legal jargon of English
speaking jurisdictions? UK, US, Ausralia?
If not, then there is space for defining words that are not necessarily
rooted in existing legal jargon, as long as we define them well in the
context and bind the definition to recognised, existing legal structures
and code. Even if just for the sake of using it in the human layer of
the license.


We have been creative in coming up with this combination of words that
give the meaning. I am not sure if we need to use a “catchy word” as we
can come with many alternatives, but would it be understood?

If English-speaking people can be taught what "ShareAlike" means then it
shouldn't be a problem educating Arabic speaking people what
المشاركةبالمثل means.

I other discussions about localisation I tend to give numerous examples
about the seemingly unequivocal usage of words in the modern age and
specially Internet domain, while their recent history reveal radically
different usage. See for example spam, web, etc.. And by recent I mean
only few decades, so that even and elderly who isn't familiar with the
jargon of the Internet would have no clue about their use in this context.

Again, my argument above will stand only if "ShareAlike" is made up in
English with no precedence in legal code. You know better about this.




*4) **NoDerivatives: بلااشتقاق*

The Jordanian /Copyright Law/ does not use the word derivative as found
in the US /Copyright Act of 1976/, As Amended. "derivative work" is
defined in 17 U.S.C. § 101 as:

“..a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, such as a
translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization,
motion picture version….”



Art 9 of the Jordanian /Copyright Law/ provides that:

“The author shall have the right to financially exploit his work in any
way he chooses... This right shall include:

C. To translate his work into another language, adapt it, orchestrate
it, or make any alteration thereto…”



We have been faithful to the wording of the law itself that uses
*(**اقتباس**), *and we didn’t want to come up with a new word that might
not be recognised.

Legal points acknowledged. And I maintain the same arguments as above,
if they stand.


It is true that the word “derivatives” do not appear in the title of the
Arabic license as the unported license that we have used did not include
it. Please make sure when you are reviewing the Arabic 03 license to
compare only with the unported licence. All comments must be based also
on the Jordanian /Copyright Law/.

So you intend to use بلااقتباس as the license element equivalent to
"NoDerivatives"?


Again, regarding Jordanian law, I'm commenting here specifically on the
words used in the human layer of the license, i.e. its title, which we
have an agreement on, and the license elements. I don't have the legal
expertise to judge your work, and I'm not trying to.

What I'm trying to do is to ensure that these license element idioms are
chosen in a way that could be easily used across the Arab World,
regardless of the internal workings of the localised legal code; and
most importantly that they be as *human* as much as possible; easy to
learn and propagate.


I was referring to another Arabic 03 version that we want to send to CC.
This version is still not available online as we have to send it CC with
the English translation and have their approval.

I don't have that. So proceeding with the critique of the reminder of
the license text won't be feasible.


One last note , what do you mean by?

“residual issues are: including “software” in the licensed word possibly
covered by CC license…”.

I've raised few points in the first part of my critique of the license
which I submitted to the mailing list in October 2008 [see
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-jo/2008-October/thread.html].
I believe those are worthy of your consideration. Some linguistic notes,
and suggestions for wording, and also some conceptual.

Among those one about how the draft I had seen enumerates computer
*software* among what the license is intended to cover. Wile I'm not
arguing about the viability of this use of the license, I understand
that the English versions I've seen refrains from counting software
among its intended usage. I guess this is consciously left to other
licenses designed specifically for that, like GNU.

There are also notes about generalisations and specifications in the
language of the license that I thought could benefit from reviewing.
Nothing specific to any given legal jurisdiction. Or so I think.


Thank you again. Please let us know if you have further comments.

Thank you, Rami, for taking the time to respond.

Sincerely,
Ahmad Gharbeia

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