Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Tom Morris <tom AT bbcity.co.uk>]

On 12 Apr 2004, at 01:37, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> Well, be that as it may, the actual program to make the Founders'
> Copyright work doesn't seem to have actually ever gotten off the
> ground. So it's kind of a moot point.
>
> Note that the Founders' isn't anything like the other CC licenses. You
> can't just say, "This book/movie/photo is available under the
> Founders' Copyright." You have to _apply_ to use the
> Founders'. There's actually money that changes hands and some kind of
> contract agreement that happens, and Creative Commons has some
> bookkeeping it has to do.
>
>      http://creativecommons.org/projects/founderscopyright/
>
> If I can summarize: the deal is that the copyright holder sells their
> work to Creative Commons for $1. CC then licenses the work back to the
> copyright holder for 14 or 28 years. After that, assumably, the work
> is dedicated the public domain.
>
> There's supposed to be an online registry where all the works that
> have been bought by CC are listed. There isn't one; my feeling this is
> because no works were ever bought.
>
> Maybe some works _were_ actually bought; there's not a clear record of
> that anywhere I can find. Maybe someone else knows.

Surely it would be possible for other interested parties to do a 
similar deal. If CC don't get their act together and do so, perhaps a 
group of people unaffiliated with CC could offer a similar deal.

As for use of the licence, it would be interesting to note whether or 
not an author can make a pre-emptive public domain dedication. I.e. 
saying: "I own the copyright and all rights reserved, but in x years 
time, the material will go in to the PD". Currently, if I were to write 
a book, and placed a notice in the book saying "In 15 years time, this 
book will enter the PD" (or legalese to that effect), but I'm not sure 
whether that is binding on me or just a statement of intent. Also would 
it be binding on others - if I was unable to make a public domain 
dedication, but had asked for a PD dedication in x years, would others 
have to respect that?

--
Tom Morris
http://www.bbcity.co.uk