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cc-licenses - Re: Warranty Issue Revisited

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: "Todd A. Jacobs" <tjacobs-tmp-1077654549.186cf9 AT codegnome.org>
  • To: cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: Warranty Issue Revisited
  • Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 12:29:08 -0800 (PST)

On Thu Feb 19 04:20:33 EST 2004, Evan Prodromou wrote:

>for any of these type of works. Every contract I've ever seen or signed
>for written work has had an indemnification and warranty, and I've seen
>one or two for music that have similar clauses.

Withouty dignifying your obvious flame-bait, I think you're missing the
point: the license is not a contract, it is a set of permissions provided
to a downstream licensee. If someone wants to enter into a contractual
agreement with you, there's nothing in the license to prevent them from
doing so.

A contract requires consideration, which involves the exchange of value.
In an ideal world, the value is high enough to justify the additional risk
of making warranties or agreeing to indemnification. A free license to a
downstream user creates no monetary value, so I stand by my statement that
*creating* liability is a bad idea.

There is nothing stopping you from creating a warranty to distribute
alongside your work, if you feel it is important to do so. But *requiring*
it is quite likely to prevent general uptake of the CC license, and is the
main reason my company is currently leaning towards the GFDL for
distribution of written materials.

--
Todd's "Customer Disservice Hall of Shame" currently contains:
- Charter Communications: Mislead their customers about service
levels, block normal Internet connectivity, and exhibit excessive
downtime.
- AT&T: Honoring the "checks" they send out to entice you to switch
long-distance providers is apparently optional.
- eFax: Receive (not send) 20 pages of *unsolicited* faxes, and lose
your account.




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