Creative Commons Canada

["Ian! D. Allen" <idallen AT idallen.ca>]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 11:42:36AM -0400, Ian wrote:
> Regarding moral rights, we have decided to reserve an author's moral
> rights in all CCC licenses.  

As Russell says, this severely limits the usefulness of the Canadian
licenses; I will not use them.  People such as I put CC licenses on things
to *allow* them to be used.  We want things put into the public commons so
that others can stand on our shoulders.  If I can't truly free my product
with a Canadian license, it isn't useful; nobody will use my stuff.

> Creative Commons is a creator-centric licensing scheme.

No, the USA license is a "re-user"-centric licensing scheme.  It allows
follow-on users to be sure that the work is available for re-use.
(Re-users are, of course, also creators; but, that isn't how the
public usually thinks of them.  Let's not use the confusing language.)

First-time creators already have regular copyright; they don't need
CC licenses.

> The bottom line is: the Canadian Creative Commons will not automatically
> waive a creator's right without concrete evidence that this is desired
> by the majority of creators. 

But this is the very essence of a CC license - to put something into
the public commons so that it can be re-used.  We must have that.

> Where do you draw the line between enhancing licensor choice and keeping
> things simple (i.e. easy to maintain and understand)? 

If moral rights are an issue in Canada, we have to have ways of
relinquishing them.  If the moral rights have sub-rights, yes, we have
to deal with all those nastly little categories and allow first-creators
to clearly and unambiguously waive them, for the benefit of follow-on
creators.  If that isn't simple in Canada, so be it.  We must have it.

Marcus suggests separating out the moral rights into a different license;
I think the separation is largely cosmetic.  It doesn't change the need
to deal with the moral rights issue in Canada.  Whether you fill out two
web forms or one, it's the same number of check boxes.

-- 
-IAN!  Ian! D. Allen   Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
       EMail: idallen AT idallen.ca   WWW: http://www.idallen.com/
       College professor via: http://teaching.idallen.com/
       Support free and open public digital rights:  http://eff.org/