Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On 24 May 2004, at 18:59, Greg London wrote:

> I've got no statistics on how many works are licensed SA, etc.
> But the way CC presents the licenses in its cartoon FAQ,
> the emphasis seems to be on the FreeAdvertising model.
> Use NC to get your photo distributed, then when someone
> notices and wants to use it commercially, charge them money.

Well they failed with me, I've gone CC-BY-SA. ;-)

> So, I think assigning copyright to CC would be a no-go.
>
> Also, the FSF only asks people to do that for their projects,
> projects that they started or that people contributed to their
> efforts. I think emacs and the gnu-c-compiler are both FSF.
> And these were both started by Richard Stallman, and RS started
> the FSF, so it was a bit of an inside job of sorts.

This is true. Looked at more abstractly, assignment has two advantages:

1. It makes the work easier to defend. This is essentially a service to 
the author. This could be achieved by providing documentation on how to 
pursue infractors, sample cease-and-desist letters, even a 
letter-writing application (like the license-choosing application). 
This could all be localised like the licenses are.

2. Along with the employer disclaimer it makes sure ownership of the 
work is clear. This isn't required for CC, but the Wiki projects and 
other collaborative works *will* get bitten by this at some point and 
will need an audit trail.

> I have no idea how CC or FSF make money though. contributions?
> Volunteers? How many people are on their payroll?

Donations, memberships and sales of manuals, CDs and T-Shirts. UNESCO 
sponsor the Free Software directory, Stallman got a grant a few years 
back.

Don't know about the payroll. Lessig's just joined it, though. :-)

> My perl book is GNU-FDL. And I just recently discovered
> http://www.lulu.com
> (started by one of the RedHat founders, by the way)
> that does self-publishing via print-on-demand with
> ZERO money up front. So I printed my perl book
> through them as well. They sell it for $10 and I get $2.
> The only reason this works for me is because I could
> do it with zero money up front. I did it as a convenient
> way for people to get a paperback without it costing
> me anything. I didn't do it to get rich. They charge
> $10 for a book and I make $2 per book. But if lulu
> had charged even a token amount up front, it would not
> have made sense for me to put a libre document into POD.

It's an investment. It would cost more than 2 dollars to defend it 
against any claims from your employer or a random idiot like SCO, or 
any license breaches by third parties using it. If you can get some 
paperwork done properly to start with, you're off to a better start.

> If CC charged for registration or for using their licenses,
> they would have an opportunity to make money,
> but they would also shut out anyone who intends on
> contributing to a gift economy.

I'm not suggesting they charge for their licenses, that wouldn't make 
sense. I am suggesting that they, or somebody, provide the services 
that the FSF and now Linux are using to guard against the SCOs of this 
world.

- Rob.

--
http://www.robmyers.org/ - A decade of art as open content.
http://www.robmyers.org/weblog/ - Art, aesthetics & free culture weblog.