Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>]

>>>>> "RM" == Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com> writes:

    RM> A slight modification to 5a will take effort to sell to the
    RM> bloggers who scream blue murder over having to claim
    RM> authorship over their own work.

So, one thing that bothers me about the loss of 5a is that the
original discussion was about creating an *additional* legal document
for bloggers et. al. who don't have confidence in their own rights to
warranty the work they publish. I think the word "quitclaim" was
tossed around on this page:

      http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/3681

I'm not really sure what a quitclaim is, but it sounds like what Dan
Bricklin and others were asking for.

      http://www.satn.org/archive/2003_04_27_archive.html#200212947

Bricklin even called the warranty in CC 1.0 licenses "appropriate".

Webster's 1913 definition of quitclaim, presented here through the
magic of the public domain:

     Quitclaim \Quit"claim`\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Quitclaimed}; p.
     pr. & vb. n. {Quitclaiming}.] (Law)
     To release or relinquish a claim to; to release a claim to by
     deed, without covenants of warranty against adverse and
     paramount titles.

Sounds about right for what people were asking for.

I personally don't really care all that much about the needs of
bloggers, but if CC wants to address them, maybe a new license^W
agreement project needs to be started, a la the other agreements here:

      http://creativecommons.org/discuss

I'd volunteer to start a "quitclaim" project, even though I don't give
a crap about quitclaims, just to preserve the warranty in the real
licenses.

What bothers me is that the argument that was specifically about
creating _additional_ licenses seems to have been reinterpreted into
changing _all_ licenses. There is great value for publishers, users,
creators of derivative works, and, yes, even original authors
themselves in having the warranty section. Removing it for a minority
of creators who don't feel comfortable with asserting and warrantying
their right to publish makes the work of the rest of us less useful
and worthwhile.

I realize my continual harping on this issue is probably pretty
annoying. I apologize for that.

~ESP

-- 
Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
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