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  • From: Konstantinos Stylianou <stiliamail AT yahoo.gr>
  • To: cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [cc-licenses] Legal Questions on CC validity and enforceability
  • Date: Wed, 07 Mar 2007 23:07:50 +0200


Hey all,


After having done some research, there seem to be two points still remaining unanswered. The first one relates to the validity of the CC licenses with regard to para 204 of the US Copyright Law, which mandates that an IP license should be made in writing. Since a CC license is never in writing (eg. no electronic signatures are involved), does this mean that they are invalid?
My second point has to do with the nature of the CC licenses and in particular whether the CC licenses are a form of a web-wrap license, which have been deemed unenforceable by numerous US Court judgements like Ticketmaster Corp. v. Tickets.com, Inc. U.S. Dist. (C.D. Ca., 2000), Pollstar v. Gigmania, 170 F.Supp 2d 980, Specht v. Netscape Communications Corp., 150 F.Supp 2d 595.  Since the CC licenses have not been challenged in US Courts their enforceability under US law is still unclear. Though a dutch court upheld a CC license, it must be noted that the dutch court completely disregarded the issue of  the CC licenses' nature.
Any ideas?
Thank so much. By the way, I'm not a US law student, so allow for any misinterpretation of the US law.



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