Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

(I agree with Evan's point about discriminating against people who represent 
that they own the work).

 On Tuesday, February 24, 2004, at 03:42PM, <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:

>if you try to idiot-proof your license, the world will
>simply make a better idiot.

I am not trying to idiot-proof it. With Open licenses, complete licenses 
aren't readable and readable licenses aren't complete. I am trying to make 
sure that enough of the right legalese goes in to make the contract 
reasonably watertight.

>A license is not the place for Author educational materials.

It is the place for legal details that aid regulation and enforcement and 
inform the user of their rights and responsibilities. Therefore it is a good 
place for a reduced 5a (I'm arguing for a reduced 5a as per the OGL or IBM 
licenses, not a chain-of-responsibility original 5a).

>licensing someone elses work is a copyright violation.
>I would think that a breach of license plus a copyright
>violation would still boil down to a copyright violation.

Which is quicker to tackle/more well-defined in law/etc.?

>If Infringing Ingrid posts some music that infringes
>on Vanilla Ice Cream's proprietary music, and if 
>Distribution Dave unknowingly puts Ingrid's music on
>his website, I don't see how any promise by Ingrid
>to Dave can prevent Vanilla from suing Dave for
>copyright violation. 

And I don't see how not making people aware of this helps. Revising 5a to be 
a personal declaration of authority to contribute would, I believe, strike 
the correct balance.

- Rob.