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cc-licenses - RE: Gnu-Fdl or CC Attribution-ShareAlike?

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: "Sunir Shah" <sunir AT sunir.org>
  • To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts" <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: Gnu-Fdl or CC Attribution-ShareAlike?
  • Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 15:00:08 -0500

Evan writes,
> Wikis are pretty much derivative work factories. Dual licenses don't
> really work well in a wiki environment.

I think it's better to go with a simpler license
than a more complex copyright regime, but that
means giving up control. Either you pull control
out of your authors' hands by making everything
"primarily public domain" or you give up control
to use the default copyright, more or less, and
use social pressure to rerelease content under
various licenses.

Otherwise, you're going to enter into a lot of
copyright discussions which are an gunpowder mix
of power and legalese when ultimately you won't
be able to enforce the nuances of your copyright
anyway. I doubt the FSF is going to back a site
that dual licenses as that is outside their
declared scope.

After all, if you don't have a reasonable hope of
suing over the license, it becomes pointless. The
simpler the license the easier it is to make a
legal claim. (Note easier means cheaper.)

Of course, copyright isn't just for the lawyers.
It works very well amongst the honest, so that is
another reason to keep your license simple and
clear. Confusion will just encourage people to do
what they want or misunderstand.

SS




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