Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Joseph Reagle <reagle AT w3.org>]

I didn't follow the first version and comments very closely, so some of my 
comments might have already been discussed.

On Tuesday 17 September 2002 08:02 pm, Glenn Brown wrote:
> 2) the new license draft
> <http://cr3at1v3:c0mm0n88 AT creativecommons.org/new/licensesept17>

   BY EXERCISING ANY RIGHTS TO THE WORK PROVIDED HERE, YOU ACCEPT AND
   AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. THE LICENSOR GRANTS
   YOU THE RIGHTS CONTAINED HERE IN CONSIDERATION OF YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF
   SUCH TERMS AND CONDITIONS.

I always like the GPL text on this point since it makes very clear the 
nature of the rights and license:
  5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
  signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify
  or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions
  are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore,
  by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on
  the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do
  so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing
 or modifying the Program or works based on it. 
Perhaps CC could use a similar explanation?


   4. Restrictions. The license granted in Section 3 above is expressly
   made subject to and limited by the following restrictions:

The little "note to reviewers" was helpful to me in understanding these 
sections. I think perhaps a simple summary/motivation for each restriction 
would be of use to those other than reviewers (when the time comes).

    a. You may distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
       publicly digitally perform

I presume there's a reason for calling out "digitally perform"?

       You may not distribute, publicly
       display, publicly perform, or publicly digitally perform the Work
       with any technological measures that control access or use of the
       Work in a manner inconsistent with the terms of this License
       Agreement.

Is this something the Licensor has control over? For instance, if I use such 
a work in a collection, and that collection is played within some DRM 
scheme that absent a "trust signature" refuses to let me print it, who is 
the licensor? The DRM provider?

       The above applies to the Work as incorporated in a
       Collective Work, but this does not require the Collective Work
       apart from the Work itself to be made subject to the terms of this
       License.

On this point, I'm rather confused. What is permitted in a scenario where I 
take a fairly liberal CC image, combine it with less liberal licenses in a 
collective work (collage/montage), which is also protected/enforced by DRM? 
If one of the constituent licenses doesn't permit printing, is this saying 
that it should not "infect" the CC governed content? This requires a 
certain level of granularity in the DRM mechanism and that the constituent 
parts can even be separately rendered. Or, the montage/collage of CC image 
itself, as its own work, might have a restriction against printing. Does 
this *require* that while the collage will not be printed, the constituent 
parts *must* be printable or they can not be used at all?


       If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
       Licensor You must remove from the Derivative Work any reference to
       such Licensor or the Original Author, as requested.

I'm slightly confused about this in relation to term D. Is this a correct 
summary: D states that attribution must be given, but *if* derivative works 
are made the original author may ask their attribution be removed from the 
derivative work? If so, what is the scope of this obligation? Only 
current/future works, or this some obligation to alter/change existing 
works as well?

Have you considered some text akin to, "The name and trademarks of copyright 
holders may NOT be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to the 
content." Attribution is important, but instead of later yanking that 
attribution, it might be better to ensure it's not used to misrepresent a 
relationship or quality from the start...