Creative Commons Canada

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

On Wed, Jul 21, 2004 at 01:08:14PM -0400, Russell McOrmond wrote:
> 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.

I'd like to underscore this point.  Just as good computer systems
administrators write software and procedures that make the administrators
increasingly irrelevant (because the machines maintain themselves),
I want the CC and CCCa licenses to create a legal framework where I can
re-use material without requiring a lawyer to interpret or clear it.

If I need a lawyer to be sure that the license really means what it says
(really means "*only* these rights reserved"), we've failed.

The CC and CCCa licenses, as published, must reserve *only* those few
rights that are currently advertised.  We can't have them booby-trapped
with additional integrity/moral rights when applied to Canadian content.

> conditions that exist in Canadian copyright law that are not mentioned
> in the matching commons deed need to be explicitly waived.

The above clause is so important.  If for some Canadian legal reason
this can't be done, we can't call the licenses Creative Commons licenses.

"Round 2" of license development can produce licenses that also allow
creators to reserve their integrity/moral rights.  It would be worthwhile
trying to feed this capability for "more rights" back upstream to the
main Creative Commons site to make the world aware that Creative Commons
licenses do come in national flavours.

Making laws that mean the same thing world-wide is an amazing challenge.
I have total respect and admiration for Marcus and his team for taking
on this project for Canada.  Bravo!

-- 
-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/