Development of Creative Commons licenses

[email AT greglondon.com]

On Tue, 02 Mar 2004 08:32:45 -0500, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> >>>>> "ST" == S T <gm3x0ql02 AT sneakemail.com> writes:
>     ST> Suppose I create a cartoon character that is suitable for
>     ST> young children.  I want to give people the freedom to copy,
>     ST> modify, prepare derivative works using this character.
> 
> Your following discussions say that you in fact DON'T want to give
> people freedom to create derivative works; you want to retain control
> what kind of derivative works are made. Yes, you've got broad
> categories, but that doesn't mean you're not trying to retain those
> rights.
> 
> I think what you're looking for is a NoDerivatives license. You can
> then offer to allow derivative works to selected people under another,
> private license. You'll need to talk to a lawyer about it.

I would agree. The Open Source Definition seems to agree in spirit.

http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition.php

=6. No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor
=The license must not restrict anyone from making 
=use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. 
=For example, it may not restrict the program from 
=being used in a business, or from being used for 
=genetic research.

The idea being that "Open" licenses is NOT the place
for political activism. If you're against genetic 
engineering, you shouldn't put that in your license,
you should start a campaign to change genetic 
research laws.

A technically related problem to specialized licenses
that single out particular fields of endeavor is that
such licenses cause incompatibility problems with 
other licenses. a work under CC-SA-NP (no porn)
cannot be automatically joined with a work under
CC-SA. SA-NP requires that all derived works be
No-Porn as well. However the plain SA work requires
that the derived work be plain SA. 

The only way to join the works is to contact ALL the
authors of the SA work and get permission to create
a derived work that is SA-NP.

That makes it near impossible for a community to
operate openly. Having to get author permissions
whenever derived works are created becomes too
burdernsome for a community working in a gift
economy contributing works to a project.

If you want it to be "open" use plain CC-SA.
If you have issues with pornography, write
your congressman.

Othewise, if pornography is more important to
you than openness, then use CC-ND.