Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

IANAL, all IMHO:

On Monday, May 24, 2004, at 03:10PM, Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:

>Ah, I think I get it now.
>I don't think the "authority to contribute" is the important bit.
>I think the "chain of trust" is actually the piece that could
>stop an SCO lawsuit.

Having read the posting in more depth (rather than Groklaw's Cut-Up) I am 
inclined to agree with you.

>I >THINK< that "authority to contribute" type stuff
>requires more of an agreement-type contract rather
>than an open ended declaration. 

In the OGL and the IBM license people have mentioned it's a requirement and a 
representation of the person licensing the work and so is part of the 
license. These are both lawyer-written licenses so I assume this approach is 
valid. If this isn't the case I apologise, IANAL.

It is important to note that CC1 has such a representation, and if it is 
taken out for the standard CC2 this makes CC2 not upwardly compatible. Clause 
5 is a no-brainer and anyone scared by it has to ask why they're not willing 
to claim they own their own work. Non-representation could (and, given this, 
should only) be an option in CC2, not the standard, as once taken out it is 
impossible to put back in. So CC-BY-SA-NR is optional, CC-BY-SA has the 
representation. 

If it's taken out completely, representation could be another document from 
Creative Commons. It's useful and CC can add value by providing it in some 
form.

If the FSF had known about htis sort of thing would GPL 1 have had authority 
to contribute as part of the license? Who do we ask? :-)

>Doesn't FSF require
>people who are responsible for their software packages
>to file something from their employer saying
>"our employee can work on this and we disclaim any
>copyright interest" ?

That's right. They've said they're going to publish documents and software to 
describe their procedures and allow other people to implement them.

>If nothing else, since Employee Agreements are
>an agreement between two parties, I think the
>authority to contribute stuff needs more accountability
>than simply having the author declare it to be so.

I hadn't thought about employer disclaimers but since it's common for 
companies to claim ownership over *anything* an employee produces, it's an 
important consideration for CC licensing, particularly for professionals 
CC-ing personal projects. As you say, a unilateral declaration on the part of 
the employee won't work, so it can't just be a paragraph in a license. But 
possibly CC can provide a toolkit for getting an employer disclaimer (forms 
to print, suggestions for storage and authentication) (and maybe even a 
toolkit or service for a registry of waivers, which like the FSF's store of 
waivers is the logical outcome of this). I'd pay for CC to provide and hold 
representation and disclaimer papers for me, although as I keep screeching, 
representation should be part of the license (it can be taken out later, but 
it can't be put back in).

See the following link for how the FSF handle this:

http://www.fsf.org/prep/maintain_4.html

- Rob.