Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Sal Randolph <sal AT highlala.com>]

On Mar 23, 2004, at 11:40 AM, Evan Prodromou wrote:

>  It's more "remixers" who tend to have
> concerns with these warranties.

I'd just like to comment that "remixers" are not some minor segment 
only applying to obscure electronic musicians.  Besides the use of 
found sounds and samples in music there are also projects like Alice 
Randall's "The Wind Done Gone" a literary reworking (parody) of "Gone 
With the Wind" written from a slave's perspective.  While the 
protectors of "Gone with the Wind" did eventually drop their lawsuit 
(intended to keep Randall's book from being published), "The Wind Done 
Gone" is certainly an example of an important literary and cultural 
project in legally controversial waters.  Any kind of parody or 
commentary which tries to make "fair use" of copyrighted material is 
vulnerable to legal challenge in this climate.  Also, virtually every 
imaginably possible movie will show some potentially trademarked or 
copyrighted material onscreen at some point. You certainly aren't free 
to film your own apartment, for instance.  Every 'designed' object (and 
an increasing number of public architectural facades and locations) is 
potentially a legal bombshell. Big movie studios have whole departments 
devoted to getting clearances for every tiny thing that might appear, 
but obviously this is financially impossible for small independent 
producers.

We can't make culture without using culture -- every creative act is 
building on things which already exist. Legally ambiguous situations 
abound for all creative artists.  The warranties, as you point out, 
just make it easier to sue artists for their creative acts, and I 
continue to think that's a bad thing.