Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

IANAL, TINLA.

On Monday, February 02, 2004, at 02:19PM, Thomas Uwe Gruettmueller 
<sloyment AT gmx.net> wrote:

>Let us please look at the following situation:
>
> * First, I create a work and release it under a free license.
> 
> * Then someone falsely claims authorship to that work. 
>
>Without a warranty given, that asshole can now start suing me and 
>the people who distribute the work. This would be a real 
>problem, but there is no real protection against it, anyway.

Anyone that brazen could sue anyone for publishing anything. They'd target JK 
Rowling rather than you.

>However, if I give a warranty, billions of people can start suing 
>me in this situation. 

What for? They'd need to be in breach first, which would require your insane 
litigant to prove that they wrote your work. *If* they can prove that then 
you're doing more wrong than using an open license.

>Another scenario:
>
> * First, I receive a work under the CC-SA.
>
> * Next, I modify it and publish the modified work.
>
> * Later, it turns out that the first work was illegal.
>
>The problem here is that when I publish the modified work, I have 
>to warrant that my version is legal. However, there is no safe 
>way for me to determine wether the upstream version was legal. 

Contact the author?

>With a bit odf bad luck, billions of people might choose to sue 
>me and not the upstream author.

So prepare a form letter explaining how the license works.

>It seems to me that licenses that demand a warranty are a can of 
>worms, and I won't use them.

See the OGL for how this should work. You should represent that  your own 
work is your own work and pass responsibility for others' content back up to 
them, not take on or pass down that risk.

- Rob.