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cc-licenses - Re: In Favor of CC-FA

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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: "Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>
  • To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts" <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: In Favor of CC-FA
  • Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 20:37:07 -0500 (EST)


Rob Myers said:
> In an ideal world, all software would be GPL and all content would be
> CC-SA . But "weaker" licenses can be a useful stepping stone as well as
> addressing other contemporary social concerns.

Perhaps, but I'm not entirely convinced.

"stepping stone" licenses will not allow the work
to enter a Gift Economy, since the Author retains
too many rights for others to treat it as a
pure contribution.

Because the work does not enter a Gift Economy,
there is little contribution to it,
therefore the work does not develop beyond what
the original author puts into it,
therefore it is effectively All Rights Reserved
with an interesting, but unused license icon.

Having taken what he percieved to be a "step"
into this strange, new world, and gotten
little resulting benefit, the author may mistakenly
decide that "open source doesn't work" and
high-tail it back to "All Rights Reserved".

The problem is that no "stepping stone" licenses
will put the work into a Gift Economy, therefore
few will feel compelled to add to or
extend the original work.

Copyleft and PublicDomain licenses put the work
into a Gift Economy, and allow other people to
extend the work and claim it as "theirs".
By enabling others, the works improve.

Wikipedia would not work under any sort of
stepping stone license. People might submit
original entries in the encyclopedia, but
few would see incentive to update or improve
the entry if it returns to the author rather
than going to the public.

Creative Commons is fooling itself if it
thinks stepping stone licenses will help
Gift Economy licenses.




  • In Favor of CC-FA, Rob Myers, 03/28/2004
    • Re: In Favor of CC-FA, Greg London, 03/28/2004

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