Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>]

David,

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, I don't speak for
Creative Commons. This is just inexpert peer support; take it with a
grain of salt.

    DD> The band's lawyer knows nothing about Creative Commons, and
    DD> doesn't even seem interested in learning about it.

Someday in the not-so-distant future Creative Commons-aware lawyers
will be making big bucks*. Make a note to yourself to remind him of his
missed opportunity to get in at the ground level.

    DD>   - Can we legally do this, considering that the material
    DD> Beatallica uses is copyrighted?  There are no samples (except
    DD> for a little one in "Leper Madonna"...); the music is
    DD> performed, but the melodic and lyrical references are pretty
    DD> obvious.

As far as I can tell, pretty much no. You have to clear your rights to
publish anything, Creative Commons license or no. There may be some
exception for parody under the fair use clause of US copyright law,
but it's shaky ground to stand on.

You may want to simply use a verbatim-copying phrase, like this:

    "Copyright (c) 2004 Beatallica.

     Verbatim copying and distribution of these music files is
     permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved."

...on your Web site and in the ID3 tags for your MP3s (or metadata for
your Ogg Vorbis files, or whatever).

    DD>   - How binding is the license, really?  Would it stand up in
    DD> a court of law, if we had to go that route?  Has a CC license
    DD> been "field-tested" as it were?

Did I mention that I'm not a lawyer? B-)

Under copyright law, you have rights to determine how your work is
performed and distributed as well as how derivative works are
made. Usually you make agreements with individuals or companies one at
a time; with a Creative Commons license, you make a deal with the
entire world.

It is binding in that as copyright holder you have an exclusive right
to determine how your copyrighted work is used. Without your
permission, no one has rights to redistribute or perform your works,
nor to make derivative works.**

I'm pretty sure none of the CC licenses has been put to test in a
court, and there's no really good way to know if they would.

It would be EXTREMELY INTERESTING to see one or more put to the
test in a mock court. Aren't there some law classes at Stanford or
something that work with the CC licenses? 

~ESP

* I am not a psychic. This is not a psychic prediction. I do not speak
  for the future.
** Except as allowed by fair use.

-- 
Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
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