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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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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>
  • 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 17:18:11 -0500

On Saturday 16 February 2013 11:43:42 Francesco Poli 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.

Iget what you are saying so far and see that these are valid concerns. (Not
speaking to agreement or disagreement here.)
>
> 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.

Wait! What? You really seem to be contradicting yourself here. Does someone
licensing their work under BY-SA4.0 know what the terms of GPLv6 will look
like?
>
> 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.

all the best,

drew




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