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cc-licenses - Re: [cc-licenses] Compatibility: please do not use an external list, insert explicit conversion clauses instead

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  • From: Kat Walsh <kat AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: Development of Creative Commons licenses <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [cc-licenses] Compatibility: please do not use an external list, insert explicit conversion clauses instead
  • Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:06:45 -0800

I'm letting this post through now but not responding to it yet,
although it deserves a response, because you've anticipated an issue
that depends on something that will be up for discussion this week.

As you've noticed but others may not have, the compatibility mechanism
is different in 4.0d3, with implications about the compatibility
process--we are queuing up a few separate discussions about both the
implications and the processes involved.

(The first one will be about including the compatibility mechanism in
BY-NC-SA, the second about clarifying how compatibility works in BY
and BY-NC. The third will be the most substantial of them, about the
compatibility process for the SA licenses in general and whether to
allow one-way compatibility as part of it.)

There is a lot of explanatory text about the way CC has been thinking
about compatibility recently that I think is important to send out
before responding directly to your points, but it will be included in
those three posts over the course of this week. In the meantime, I'm
sending this through for others to think about and to let you know
that the issue will be coming up.

-Kat

On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 8:43 AM, Francesco Poli
<invernomuto AT paranoici.org> wrote:
> Hello to everyone,
> Section 1(d) of CC-by-sa-v4.0draft3 states:
>
> [...]
>> d. Creative Commons Compatible License means a license listed at
>> http://creativecommons.org/compatiblelicenses and approved by
>> Creative Commons as essentially the equivalent of this Public
>> License.
> [...]
>
> It's worth noting that this list of Compatible Licenses can change in
> time, even after an author has licensed his/her work under the CC-by-sa
> license. This mechanism may effectively modify the permissions granted
> by that author *after* he/she licensed his/her work, independently of
> his/her will: Creative Commons can decide that some other license L is
> "equivalent" to CC-by-sa and thus allow the distribution (see the
> relevant clause later on) of Adapted Material of CC-by-sa licensed works
> under the terms of L, even if the author of the original CC-by-sa
> licensed work does not like license L.
>
> Maybe the original author does not agree with Creative Commons that
> license L is "equivalent" to CC-by-sa, but there's nothing he/she can
> do to stop the re-licensing of Adapted Material of his/her CC-by-sa
> licensed works. This mechanism greatly weakens the copyleft of the
> CC-by-sa (assuming that CC-by-sa is intended to be a copyleft license).
>
> I think that this mechanism should not be implemented: when I decide
> that I want a copyleft license, I don't want that adapted material can
> be re-licensed under yet unknown terms. Licenses that are declared
> compatible with a given version of a license should be known upfront
> and not change in time.
>
> Instead, I reiterate the recommendation to introduce an explicit
> one-way conversion clause that allows redistribution of
> CC-by-sa-v4.0-licensed works under the terms of the GNU
> GPL version 2 or any later version.
>
> Moreover, no compatibility mechanism seems to be implemented
> in the draft3 of CC-by-v4.0.
>
> Once again, I strongly recommend to introduce an explicit one-way
> conversion clause that allows redistribution of CC-by-v4.0-licensed
> works under the terms of the zlib license:
> http://www.gzip.org/zlib/zlib_license.html
>
> See my previous messages [1][2] about the same issues in draft2.
>
> [1] https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2012-August/007114.html
> [2] https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2012-August/007140.html
>
> I hope these suggestions may be followed in the next draft.
>
>
> --
> http://www.inventati.org/frx/frx-gpg-key-transition-2010.txt
> New GnuPG key, see the transition document!
> ..................................................... Francesco Poli .
> GnuPG key fpr == CA01 1147 9CD2 EFDF FB82 3925 3E1C 27E1 1F69 BFFE
>
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> in the CC licenses http://wiki.creativecommons.org/4.0 development
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>



--
Kat Walsh, Counsel, Creative Commons
IM/IRC/@/etc: mindspillage * phone: please email first
Help us support the commons: https://creativecommons.net/donate/
CC does not and cannot give legal advice. If you need legal advice,
please consult your attorney.




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