Creative Commons Canada

[Russell McOrmond <russell AT flora.ca>]

  I was just reading another article that won an award, which made me 
think of this forum.

http://lists.canopener.ca/pipermail/discuss/2004-July/001601.html
Which references
  http://www.linuxworld.com/story/34250.htm?DE=!

Which includes:

    While Torvalds is revered by many in the Linux community, he receives 
    little special treatment on the kernel development list. Everyone
    involved in kernel development wants to do the best job possible, 
    which means that discussions -- or arguments, which is what this
    degenerated to for a bit -- tend to happen with everyone as peers for
    the most part.  Torvalds might have the last word, but that doesn't 
    mean that people always let a topic drop if they think that there
    really is something to it.


  I hope that my respect for Marcus and Philippa is known, as well as my
huge thanks to the iCommons Canada team (Ian M. Kerr, Michael Yang,
Philippe Gauvin, Marty Finestone, etc) for the work they have done to get
a draft set of licenses out fairly quickly.  I don't want my comments to
make them believe their work is not appreciated.

  That being said, I do believe we have a serious problem that the current
'compromise' does not address.  CC licenses have a model that is well
explained on the CreativeCommons.org website.  See the diagram mid-page on
http://creativecommons.org/projects/international/
http://creativecommons.org/images/projects/international.gif

  - You have a Commons Deed, which is what most creators/users will read 
    and rely on.
  - You have a *matching* set of legal code, per country, which
    lawyers/judges/etc will read.
  - You have a *matching* set of computer code (XML tags) which computers 
    can read to automate the process.


  The conversation during porting should never be about whether a Canadian
creator will want certain conditions intact or not.  The only thing we
should be worried about is whether the legal code matches the computer
code and commons deeds.  Where there is a discrepancy, one or the other
set MUST change to match.


  The right of integrity is an interesting condition, and may even be
valuable to someone (you would need to convince me ;-).  It is not a
condition mentioned in the existing CC commons deeds or computer code.  
In order to have this new condition in a CC license, a new set of commons
deeds/computer code need to be created that would match the license.

  I will repeat my major warning:  the average user of a Creative Commons
license will never read the license or Canadian copyright law.  They are
not lawyers (or wannabes like me ;-), nor should they ever need to consult
a lawyer.  They will rely on the commons deeds being extremely clear on
what conditions exist for their follow-on distribution or production
(derivatives).  Conditions which are not clear in the commons deeds should
not exist in the license, or more specifically, conditions that exist in
Canadian copyright law that are not mentioned in the matching commons deed
need to be explicitly waived.

  When figuring out what the right thing to do in this case is, please
back away from being a lawyer for a moment.  Try to think as a layperson
who knows nothing about the law and is looking to be innovative and
creative in a lawyer-free environment.


Thank you!



Note:  the iCommons Canada or CIPPIC really need to create a FAQ for the
website which gives a layman's explanation of these specific moral rights,
including clear real-world examples.  If "right of integrity" becomes a
new condition in a *new* set of Commons Deeds, then there will need to be
a clear explanation for people to know when to choose which license, and
also why they would want (or not want) to use works under various
licenses.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Petition for Users' Rights, Protect Internet creativity and innovation
      Canadian Election 2004: http://digital-copyright.ca/
 Find out where parties and candidates stand on important Tech issues!