Developer discussion for Creative Commons technology and tools

[Engel Nyst <engel.nyst AT gmail.com>]

On 12/31/2014 09:52 PM, Rob Myers wrote:
>
> On 31/12/14 08:29 PM, Engel Nyst wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Projects that don't have such an agreement in place are
>>> effectively stuck on a particular license for the rest of time.
>>> That's a situation I'd like to avoid.
>>
>>
>> That's an understandable reason, but it has solutions, other than
>> copyright assignment. Apart from what was said here already (you
>> can just use AGPLv3 or later),
>
>
> The AGPL didn't exist a few years ago. Current license or later
> would not have been sufficient to adopt it.


Please see GPLv3 section 13, "Use with the GNU Affero General Public
License".

Indeed it didn't exist, but that GPLv2+ and GPLv3 combinations are
possible under AGPLv3.

> The FSF emphasizes copyright (and thereby license) enforcement as
> their reason for taking assigments:
>
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-assign.html


Indeed. FSF wants license enforcement. While they don't strictly need
copyright assignment from everyone for that, in my understanding the
bigger 'share' they have, the more it helps them with enforcement. I
don't see CC wanting enforcement among the reasons stated.

If CC wants to enforce the licenses in court in place of the authors, an
alternative is to simply offer to enforce licenses in court in place of
the authors who want that. And accept assignments from those authors.


-- 
"Excuse me, Professor Lessig, may I ask you to sign this CLA, so we can
*legally* have your permission to distribute your CC-licensed works?"
 ~ Permission culture, step two.