Developer discussion for Creative Commons technology and tools

[Mike Linksvayer <ml AT creativecommons.org>]

On Mon, 2006-08-21 at 23:20 -0400, Luis Villa wrote:
> > There wouldn't have been as nobody is putting any CC license info in
> > image files, direct or indirect.
> 
> But they're claiming CC license on images by uploading to flickr. I
> can scan Madonna's book, upload to flickr, and claim it is CC- is
> anyone doing that?

I don't know about the "claim it is CC" part, but I would be very
surprised if it never happens.  Flickr of course has a takedown
procedure and does ask people to remove images they don't have the
rights to publish.  A quick "flickr takedown" query finds
http://realgeek.blogspirit.com/archive/2005/09/24/404-images.html

> > No!  A CC license is "valid" for a work because a copyright holder has
> > offered it to the public.  [Non-]conformance with a technical
> > recommendation for annotating a work with license info does not make a
> > license [in]valid.  The best annotations can do is provide additional
> > context as to whether a valid offer was made.
> 
> But if the only license information is on the web, and not in the file
> itself, then I have no way of knowing what the license is. So, you're
> right, technically it isn't invalid, but it is useless. :)
> 
> (This is again all relative to what I thought your original proposal
> was; if I'm arguing with a straw man just let me know and I'll shut
> up.)

I do say that if there is only one url available that should be for a
"web statement" rather than for a CC license directly, so it isn't
entirely a strawman.

I guess I'll have to figure out a second field to use in Exif.

> > I'm not sure how a bare
> > license URL would be enough for anyone who actually cares about
> > copyright status to feel comfortable using lost and found material.
> 
> <shrug> works all the time out here in free software world :) I think
> in large part that may be because we tend to have more robust sharing
> *communities*, as opposed to floating-off-in-the-ether individuals,
> which seems to be more how most CC-related sharing happens right now.
> So perhaps you're right that the free software/CC mapping here is not
> a good one.

I think that's about right.  And even if a free software project is a
one person effort you can generally get lots more info about it with an
obvious web search.  That just isn't the case for lots of non-software
works.

-- 
  http://wiki.creativecommons.org/User:Mike_Linksvayer