Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

IANAL, TINLA.

On Wednesday, October 06, 2004, at 07:10AM, Evan Prodromou 
<evan AT wikitravel.org> wrote:

>Wow. That's really, really stupid. Who the hell thought that one up? 

The Berne convention. You get two moral rights: Paternity (attribution), and 
Integrity (the right to object to treatment of your work). IN would 
simulate/manage Integrity much like BY simulates/manages Paternity.
 
In countries with strong Moral Rights legislation (notably Canada? and 
Europe), you have these rights automatically. You can waive them in Canada? 
and the UK, but they are inalienable in Germany IIRC.

So this isn't some crazy idea that CC have come up with, it's a reality of 
international copyright law that needs dealing with. It's good that CC are 
tackling this.

>It's a revocable license, which is bad enough, but also a license that
>can be revoked at whim. "You are entitled to use this work in any way
>you want, except if it bothers me, in which case I can sue your ass real
>hard. Enjoy this work as you quiver in fear."

That's how it works, yes.

I've flip-flopped on this one a bit, because it's a moral right (as in "some 
rights reserved"), and it may scare people if they have to waive their moral 
rights. I also had a case of someone mis-displaying one of my CC'd images 
recently, which Integrity would have short-circuited if a polite email hadn't.

But Moral Rights do look rather like land-mines on the commons. 

- Rob.