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cc-bizcom - Re: [Cc-bizcom] Share-revenues as an alternative to Non-commercial

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Subject: A discussion of hybrid open source and proprietary licensing models.

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  • From: Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>
  • To: CC Bizcom List <cc-bizcom AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Cc-bizcom] Share-revenues as an alternative to Non-commercial
  • Date: Thu, 5 May 2005 11:00:17 +0100

On 4 May 2005, at 04:05, David Christie wrote:

Someone on the CC Licenses list, where I first posted this, suggested it might also be relevant to the CC Bizcom list readership:

https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/cc-licenses/2005-May/002272.html

This seems to be a way of enabling an impromptu partnership or co-operative through licensing. One of the great strengths of Free/Open licenses is the way they allow and indeed encourage impromptu value relationships to form in quite strong ways, so this is a very interesting way of modernising those ways of working.

One problem that springs to mind when combining this with Sharealike is that it's open to exploits. The revenue generated by the work is shared between copyright holders. So if I take your work, trivially modify it and make it available, and someone uses that, then I get some of the percentage for very little work. People will automate this process with scripts running on a computer that search the internet for content, automatically change the colour or font, search-and-replace certain words, add a little echo to it, and then re-upload it.
I assume that only people whose names appear in the derivation chain for a work share the percentage, but it could be argued that this removes some of the incentive for non-trivial downstream users to add (non-trivial) value to derivative works if they may not be rewarded. I've no problem with that, but many arguments around the economics of Free Culture/Software seem to assume a god-given right to profit for rightsholders whether anyone wants to buy their work or not.

On the subject of dual licensing, dual licensing is bad for the reasons Greg gives on cc-community. Dual licensing does not help commerce or culture. It decreases monetary value by discouraging sales of the commercial product and it decreases intellectual value by discouraging contributions to the Open product. I think dual licensing was discussed on this list a while back.

- Rob.





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