Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Ben Judson <ben AT eatworms.org>]

Title: attribution

I'm new to this list, and have only briefly skimmed the archives, so I apologize if I'm rehashing old stuff here....

Attribution is a big issue here, and finding an elegant way to deal with it is going to be essential for many would-be Creative Commons/Open Content authors.  I notice that the Open Publication License (OPL) deals with this in a more direct manner than the Creative Commons licenses.  The OPL (http://opencontent.org/openpub/) lays out the following requirements:

1. The modified version must be labeled as such.

2. The person making the modifications must be identified and the modifications dated.

3. Acknowledgement of the original author and publisher if applicable must be retained according to normal academic citation practices.

4. The location of the original unmodified document must be identified.

5. The original author's (or authors') name(s) may not be used to assert or imply endorsement of the resulting document without the original author's (or authors') permission.

This (esp. requirement 2) is pretty extensive compared to the CC licenses.  So my question is: is there an elegant way to provide this kind of information regarding the 'version history' of a work?  If the work is to be kept in the digital realm, some slight modification of the 'wiki' system would do the job nicely (allowing and tracking modifications by, potentially, anyone).  Some word processors also collect and save data about modifications.  The OPL provides for restricting the work to a specific medium -- you can designate that a work remain only in print form, for instance, or restrict others from putting it in print form (thus you could keep it in a system which 'guarantees' the authenticity of the credited authors).

But in print form this kind of rigorous attribution system seems doomed to be awkward.  With the advent of DRM, PDF, Wiki, etc. etc. the concept of limiting the media on which a work may appear seems to be closely intertwined with the concept of attribution.

I love what you're doing at Creative Commons.  The project is much more extensive and ambitious than anything of its type that I've seen so far.

Thanks,

Ben.

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eatworms.org ++ burn the lines of the city ++