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cc-licenses - Re: Does CC-SA require a modifiable copy?

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Ricardo Gladwell <president AT freeroleplay.org>
  • To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: Does CC-SA require a modifiable copy?
  • Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 11:52:44 +0000

Rob Myers wrote:
On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, at 09:51AM,
> Ricardo Gladwell <president AT freeroleplay.org> wrote:
However, as I have argued before, by publishing content in closed, proprietary formats you can also restrict the free flow of ideas. In the case of Brand X proprietary word processor, whilst it may be legal to only publish content in this format under the CCPL, the format itself may not be open and thus it may be difficult if not impossible to use the content unless you pay a large ammount of money for the application.

If I release an image in, say, Photoshop format, I am limiting my
audience.
If, however, I convert the image to a non-proprietary format, I will
lose some of the editability of the work. Which is more important,
breadth of access or depth of access? (Hmmm. This parallels some
current governmental debates on the arts here in the UK :-) ).

I'm not sure that it necessarily follows that, by converting to a open format, you will lose some of the editability of the work: by doing so in some situations you may increase the ability to edit the work by lowering the cost-of-entry. Also, open formats tend to be supported by more applications, so you are actually increasing the available applications choices with which content can be edited.

In my own work this can best be illustrated by the case of some
images I made about ten years ago using Adobe Dimensions (a *vector*
3D package). I couldn't have done the work any other way at that
time, I can't convert the work to another editable format now, so
what do I do? I can release the all-but-unreadable editable format,
or I can render the work as a 2D vector image which is editable as
far as it goes, but does not have the full editability of the 3D
version. I'm about to make some more of this work in Illustrator CS,
again using its unique capabilities.

I appreciate the technical problems with various formats. Of course, one simple solution is making the 'Transparency' or 'Source' clause optional.

But, is it really true in this day and age that you cannot convert from the Adboe 3D vector format to another?

In the absence of a guiding principle of FSF-Freedom, this is a
dilemma. A producer will want the fully editable format, they will
probably have the software. A consumer will want the accessible
format. I provide various formats, but even with scripts to derive
various formats for me from the original, this takes effort, and
with (say) a movie, the space requirements would become a
consideration.

I don't think framing this argument in a CC versus FSF dichotomy is useful: this is not about the principals of the FSF, but about the ability to restrict access to creative derivatives of CCPL'd works by publishing them in proprietary formats. One assumes that the ability to create derivative works in Share Alike licensed works is something the CC considers important otherwise they wouldn't have create the SA CCPL.

There are two issues here, of course: the requirement to provide a modifiable copy of the content (aka GPL Source Clause) and the requirement to provide a format of the source in an 'open' format (aka FDL Transparency Clause). Since the later depends on the former, the Source clause, i.e. providing a modifable version of the content, is important so that you cannot, for example, publish in PDF without supplying the OO.org or MS Word document (which is not prohibited in the CCPL as it stands). As I've stated, the Transparency clause is also important but less so, and perhaps could be an optional clause.

Kind regards...

--
Ricardo Gladwell
President, Free Roleplaying Community
http://www.freeroleplay.org/
president AT freeroleplay.org




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