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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Trust and merge [was: Mapping of license restrictions (CC -GFDL compatibility)]

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: rob AT robmyers.org
  • To: cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Trust and merge [was: Mapping of license restrictions (CC -GFDL compatibility)]
  • Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:45:35 +0000

Quoting Terry Hancock <hancock AT anansispaceworks.com>:

In legal terms, the earlier "license grant" (not the
license) "includes by reference" the later license, which
can *legally* include any terms it wants. It could convert
ALL BY-SA content to AFL or MIT licenses and allow any form
of relicensing, including proprietary.

Does this mean that NC could be upgraded to allow commercial use?

The problem is that this would be a major *ethical*
betrayal.

Yes.

Whenever people use the "or any later version"
clause, they open themselves up to this kind of betrayal.
That's why you have to really trust the institution you
put that kind of trust in.

But there's no *legal* obstacle.

Erk. Are you certain about that? If CC rewrote NC to allow commercial use, large
numbers of people would suffer measurable harm. Is there really no legal course
of action people could take to prevent this?

That's why some projects
prefer not to use "or any later version" with the GPL (I
don't recall if you have an option with By-SA, I think the
language may actually be in the license itself?).

The option to relicense derivatives (not initial works) is contained within the
BY-SA 2.x license itself.

So, to clarify, are you questioning this clause on a
*legal* or *ethical* basis? I refute the former, but the
latter is certainly debatable.

I'm questioning the relicensing clause for ethical reasons but I'd much rather
have a legal basis.

BY-SA states that you can only upgrade (or crossgrade, to an international
license) to a CC license with the same license elements (BY and SA). If the
license elements can be arbitrarily redefined then that statement is rendered
all but meaningless.

- Rob.





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