Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Sigmascape1 AT cs.com]

>
>Message: 3
>Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 15:29:42 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>
>Subject: Re: General Questions about Licensing
>To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"
>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Message-ID: <22315.206.67.17.2.1082575782.squirrel AT webmail5.pair.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
>Howdy!
>
>Trademark has to be defended by the owner or
>it can become public domain. If you try to
>trademark "Kleenex (tm) tissue paper", and
>then everyone starts calling all tissue paper
>a Kleenex, then you, as trademark holder,
>have to show effort in keeping "Kleenex" a
>trademark, an adjective, or else it can fall
>into a normal common noun in english use,
>which is public domain, and not your exclusive
>property anymore.
>
---- To clarify, if I had an actual, fully legal trademark and did not defend 
it, at some point it would become public domain? If this is true, then it 
solves a great number of potential issues for me. My fear was to establish a 
TM, formally, legally, and then if I allowed others to share my work, the 
trademark could somehow be taken away by a 3rd party person or company and 
then have them claim ownership of it. So, if I am understanding this 
correctly, a true legal trademark is either owned by a company or person, or, 
if not defended, it falls into the public domain? As along as it can't be 
taken away used exclusively by another entity, that clears a lot issues.

Thank you!!!

MLF



>Copyright does not have to be defended to
>remain your exclusive right. If Alice
>copies your work and you don't defend your
>copyright, your copyright is still yours,
>and if Bob then later copies your work,
>you can still sue Bob.
>
>if your comic character is rampantly
>copied by fan-sites, you can choose not
>to sue them, and still sue Marvel if they
>put your character in their storyline.
>
>Trademark and Copyright are just handled differently in the law.
>
>As far as CC working with trademarks, the problem is that
>trademarks cost money, and must be defended (costing more
>money), so if you're going to trademark something, you
>might as well just get a lawyer, cause some boiler plate
>from CC won't do much good.
>
>Copyright doesn't cost anything. It's automatic as soon
>as the work is in fixed form. You can register the work
>for $30, but it't not required for protection. Therefore,
>its possible to use a CC boilerplate license on your work,
>and you don't ahve to worry about expenses compared to
>Trademarks.
>
>I think I have a section about trademarks somewhere in here:
>http://www.greglondon.com/dtgd/html/draftingthegiftdomain.html
>
>IANAL
>
>Greg
>
>
>
>Sigmascape1 AT cs.com said:
>> Hello!
>>
>> I am new to the list. This is my first post.
>>
>> Over the years, I've found intellectual property issues interesting,
>> especially in the entertainment world. As a comic book fan, its really
>> interesting to read about issue relating to 'who owns what characters.' I
>> realize that CC is primarily concerned with copyright issues, and the 
>> various
>> ways to free or partially free content by using various licenses. What 
>> about
>> trademarks? For example, is there any way to create, using my comic book
>> interest, a character, establish a formal or informal trademark on the
>> character, and then create comic book content that would be then licensed
>> under some sort of CC license, and use CC or a CC-like license the entire 
>> way?
>>
>>>From what I have read while researching IP, a trademark must be 'defended' 
>>>so
>>> that it is preserved. Wouldn't the same be true of a standard copyright? 
>>> If I
>>> wrote a poem, and wanted to reserve all rights to it using the current
>>> copyright law, wouldn't I have to defend it against rampant copying or
>>> protect it against someone else claiming ownership?
>>
>> Hopefully, I am making sense. I'm just curious how far CC and CC-like 
>> concepts
>> can be pushed when it comes to complete, end-to-end concepts relating to 
>> some
>> IP.
>>
>> Thanks!!!
>>
>> MLF
>> _______________________________________________
>> cc-licenses mailing list
>> cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
>>
>>
>
>
>-- 
>Draft the Gift Domain:
>Put Free/Libre/Open/Public licensing
>concepts directly into Copyright Law.
>http://www.greglondon.com/dtgd/html/draftingthegiftdomain.html
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 4
>Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 16:16:17 -0400
>From: Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>Subject: Trademark (was Re: General Questions about Licensing)
>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Message-ID:
>    <87y8opnl2m.fsf_-_ AT unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
>    
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, I don't speak for
>Creative Commons.
>
>My understanding of the question is whether putting something under a
>CC license assures that the rights granted can be exercised regardless
>of trademark.
>
>For example, let's say I create a comic book called "The Adventures of
>SuperTroll". I register "SuperTroll" as a trademark*, and release the
>book under (say) the Attribution-ShareAlike license.
>
>Would you be able to create another book called "The Further
>Adventures of SuperTroll"? "SuperTroll Goes To Mars"? "The Death of
>SuperTroll"? Or, say, would you have to create books called "The
>Further Adventures of A Superior Bridge-Dweller"?
>
>The question gets more complicated if I also register SuperTroll's
>image as a trademark. Even if you change all the names to "Superior
>Bridge-Dweller" or "Excellent Deep-sea-fisher", using SuperTroll's
>image may cause the dreaded "confusion in the marketplace".
>
>Frankly, I'm just not sure how this works. It seems to me that section
>5 of the 1.0 licenses is pretty explicit in stating that no other
>issues should get in the way of you exercising the rights granted in
>the license. I'm not sure what the 2.0 licenses would mean, there. It
>may be implicit in the other license terms that, hey, if the author
>grants you the rights to do A, B, and C, they really mean you can do
>A, B, and C.
>
>I know that in the Open Source arena, there's been difficulty with
>trademarks for Open Source software. For example, the Mozilla
>Organization has a trademark on Mozilla, Firefox, and some of the
>logos used, and has some complicated rules about allowing the use of
>those names or logos for non-official builds of the software.
>
>   http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/licensing.html
>
>I guess the two answers here are these: for authors, if you want
>creative re-mixing of your work, don't register trademarks. For
>re-mixers, if the author has registered a trademark on something,
>don't bother with trying to re-mix their work. 
>
>~ESP
>
>-- 
>Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
>The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 5
>Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 18:13:41 -0400
>From: Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>Subject: Request to remove name
>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Message-ID:
>    <87r7uhj7xm.fsf AT unicorn.bad-people-of-the-future.san-francisco.ca.us>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>So, here's a stupid literalist jailhouse lawyer* question, but it's
>kind of bothering me.
>
>Looking at the Attribution license, section 4a. says in part:
>
>    "If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor
>    You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective
>    Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as
>    requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
>    Licensor You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the
>    Derivative Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original
>    Author, as requested."
>
>In other words, you have to take out the licensor's name if they ask
>you.
>
>But 4b. says:
>
>    "If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
>    publicly digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or
>    Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for
>    the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the
>    medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or
>    pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied;"
>
>In other words, you have to provide the licensor's name if you're
>going to exercise the license terms.
>
>I am no lawyer, but to me it doesn't seem to actually say, "Unless
>they told you not to, in which case don't."
>
>I guess you could interpret a request to remove the licensor's name as
>not "supplying" the name, but it's not really that explicit.
>
>Could this be used to arbitrarily revoke the license? "I want you to
>remove my name, which you have to do under the license, but you can't
>redistribute this work or derived works without my name, so you just
>can't redisribute at all."
>
>~ESP
>
>* I am not an actual jailhouse lawyer. This is not jailhouse advice.
>
>-- 
>Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
>Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
>The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 6
>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:28:10 +0200
>From: "Jochen Bruening" <jochen.bruening AT uni-konstanz.de>
>Subject: AW: New SRR tag
>To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"
>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Message-ID:
>    <IOEELJCDKHBDDEKHEBFFOEELCHAA.jochen.bruening AT uni-konstanz.de>
>Content-Type: text/plain;   charset="us-ascii"
>
>Rather than using the proprietary .gif format to express the CC idea (sic) I
>would prefer an open format like .png. Also a pure black and white coloring
>would relief some agonised web designers ;-)
>
>Jochen
>
>> -----Ursprungliche Nachricht-----
>> Von: cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
>> [mailto:cc-licenses-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org]Im Auftrag von Mike
>> Linksvayer
>> Gesendet: Freitag, 16. April 2004 23:12
>> An: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>> Betreff: Re: New SRR tag
>>
>>
>> Evan Prodromou wrote:
>> > So, there appears to be a new "Some Rights Reserved" tag here:
>> >
>> >     http://www.free-culture.cc/images/webcc.gif
>> >
>> > Is anyone else allowed to use that? I like it!
>>
>> I think a slightly refined version will be released with the 2.0 licenses.
>>
>> --
>>    Mike Linksvayer
>>    http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people#21
>> _______________________________________________
>> cc-licenses mailing list
>> cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
>> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-licenses
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 7
>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:47:00 +0100
>From: Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>
>Subject: Re: AW: New SRR tag
>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Message-ID: <3931334.1082638020496.JavaMail.robmyers AT mac.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>On Thursday, April 22, 2004, at 01:28PM, Jochen Bruening 
><jochen.bruening AT uni-konstanz.de> wrote:
>
>>Rather than using the proprietary .gif format to express the CC idea (sic) I
>>would prefer an open format like .png. Also a pure black and white coloring
>>would relief some agonised web designers ;-)
>
>The lzw patent has expired in most jurisdictions IIRC, and there's still 
>very little reliable support for PNG. GIF is well-supported and 
>well-understood, so IMHO it the best format for net graphics such as logos. 
>JPEG is the best open format in terms of adoption, although I appreciate 
>it's very different in aims and abilities from GIF/PNG.
>
>I agree about the B&W version, vector versions for print work would be good, 
>too. Or CC could release the vector sources and the community could make as 
>many versions in as many different formats as they like and give them back 
>through (say) a wiki.
>
>- Rob.
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 8
>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:10:31 -0400 (EDT)
>From: "Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>
>Subject: Re: Request to remove name
>To: "Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts"
>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Message-ID: <8897.206.67.17.2.1082643031.squirrel AT webmail5.pair.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
>
>
>Evan Prodromou said:
>>     "If You create a Collective Work, upon notice from any Licensor
>>     You must, to the extent practicable, remove from the Collective
>>     Work any reference to such Licensor or the Original Author, as
>>     requested. If You create a Derivative Work, upon notice from any
>>
>>     "If you distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or
>>     publicly digitally perform the Work or any Derivative Works or
>>     Collective Works, You must keep intact all copyright notices for
>>     the Work and give the Original Author credit reasonable to the
>>     medium or means You are utilizing by conveying the name (or
>>     pseudonym if applicable) of the Original Author if supplied;"
>
>> Could this be used to arbitrarily revoke the license? "I want you to
>> remove my name, which you have to do under the license, but you can't
>> redistribute this work or derived works without my name, so you just
>> can't redisribute at all."
>
>evil thoughts, man.  ;)
>
>I can't imagine a court case deciding that a request to
>remove an author's name allows the author to claim
>infringement or breach of license/contract or whatever.
>
>The "intent" of the Author, in using that license, would
>not seem to support arbitrary revokation.
>
>however, in a lawsuit happy world, it might be of
>value to clarify the license.
>
>
>
>
>------------------------------
>
>Message: 9
>Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 08:43:51 -0700
>From: Mike Linksvayer <ml AT creativecommons.org>
>Subject: Re: AW: New SRR tag
>To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts
>    <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
>Message-ID: <4087E837.1070506 AT creativecommons.org>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed
>
>Jochen Bruening wrote:
>> Rather than using the proprietary .gif format to express the CC idea (sic) 
>> I
>> would prefer an open format like .png. Also a pure black and white coloring
>> would relief some agonised web designers ;-)
>
>All license buttons are available as gif and png. 
>http://creativecommons.org/license/ hands out references to the gif form 
>by default, but you can change the extension to png if you want, e.g.,
>
>http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights.gif
>http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights.png
>
>Same will be true for the updated buttons once all 2.0 licenses are 
>released.
>
>-- 
>   Mike Linksvayer
>   http://creativecommons.org/learn/aboutus/people#21
>
>
>------------------------------
>
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>End of cc-licenses Digest, Vol 13, Issue 19
>*******************************************
>