Creative Commons Canada

[Russell McOrmond <russell AT flora.ca>]

Andy Kaplan-Myrth wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Russell McOrmond wrote:
>>   I tend to just use the US licenses when I'm the one setting the
>> license.  If I ever get sued I hope I'll find a lawyer that will try to
>> convince a judge to interpret the license the way it would be in the US,
>> which is without a right of integrity at all.  
> 
> I don't know whether that argument will be successful or not, but note
> that even the US version of the 3.0 licence explicitly retains moral
> rights now:

  US law doesn't recognize the right of integrity, and I happen to
consider that one of the other ways that US law is more future facing
than Canadian law (more robust Fair Use being another).  As we move into
more of a peer-production/peer-distribution, user-generated-content,
collaborative culture we need to move away from some of the vague limits
on this participation.  Having members of the general public
(non-lawyers) trying to make decisions about things not explicitly
listed in a "commons-deed" summary, such as knowledge of what would
offend some unknown copyright holder, are barriers to this.




  This thread is frustrating.  It emphasizes the ways in which the CC /
iCommons project and the FLOSS movement are so different.  FLOSS was
created by and for software authors, where the lawyers were just brought
in to dot the i's and cross the t's.  The CC movement appears to be
driven by lawyers without a clear idea of the needs of their "clients".

  I'm thankful for the massive amount of volunteer work that is being
done by the legal community, but I'm not convinced the CC project will
ever be as successful as the FLOSS movement.  All it will take is a
single moral rights (right of integrity) case against someone relying on
a CC license, and the project is dead  (The licenses will exist, but the
follow-on creativity that should be its goal will be diminished).  On
the other hand, the cases involving FLOSS licenses have pretty much all
confirmed what practitioners had intended in the first place!


  The whole conversation of the right of integrity waiver in CC came up
at CopyCamp in Toronto.  In my estimation the only people who were
concerned about the waiver were people who were not supportive of the CC
concept in the first place, or who otherwise would never allow
derivative uses without explicit permission.

  Is the non-waiver of the right of integrity based on polling actual
users of CC licenses, or some vague ideological support for this right
that exists outside of users of CC licenses?   Is it possible to conduct
a poll of actual CC license users and supporters on this issue before
such a radical policy decision is made by the lawyers?


  I guess I've made my point, more than once, and will leave it at that.
 It will be sad if this issue diminishes the possibilities of CC given
how simple it is to clearly waive the right of integrity when derivative
uses are allowed.  This could even be made one of the parameters, and
allow people to vote based on their own license choices.

-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/>
 Please help us tell the Canadian Parliament to protect our property
 rights as owners of Information Technology. Sign the petition!
 http://www.digital-copyright.ca/petition/ict/

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  portable media player from my cold dead hands!"