Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On Friday, October 22, 2004, at 04:19PM, Greg London <email AT greglondon.com> 
wrote:

>Downstream, a physical commons can work if it has the ability to
>replenish itself over time. The grass your cows ate can grow back.
>The fish you took out can be replaced by the remaining stock.
>This assumes the commons is managed in some way to avoid the
>'tragedy of the commons'. But it is another way that the metaphor
>for a common pasture diverges from applying to a commons of intellectual
>property.
>
>You're not talking about the potential of the intellectual commons
>to replenish itself, because Public Domain will continue to grow as
>copyrights expire. "fish" are restocked as copyright terms expire,
>and the Public Domain gets new content.

Then with copyright term extensions we are seeing the metaphor at work. 

>What you're talking about when you say "downstream" is really
>about keeping Proprietary competiton out of the field,
>so that a Gift Economy can monopolize the pasture.

Possibly. I'm still not sure it's that simple.

>Public Domain is NOT a gift economy, it is a true commons
>on which anyone can feed, whether they be the most altruistic
>seeker of knowledge or the most underhanded Ebeneezer Scrooge.

OK.

>The downstream potential you speak of is really saying
>"don't put your works in the public domain so anyone can
>use them, put them under a copyleft license so only
>other Gift-Economies can use them"

If using the public domain is good, having more in the public domain is good 
because more can be used from the public domain. The point at which we really 
do seem to be parting company is whether adding to the public domain (or 
whatever) is a virtue or not adding to the public domain is a vice.

>Copyleft is NOT a commons.

It is a shared, managed resource for the benefit of the communmity.

>You conveniently ignore the many versions of Hamlet that all
>exist under AllRightsReserved without suffering the public domain.
>Just because MelGibson was in a version of Hamlet, doesn't mean
>Hamlet has been taken out of the public domain.

Nor does it mean that Mel Gibson's version has been placed into the Public 
Domain.

>The Public Domain never HAD my sci-fi book in the first place,
>so the public domain couldn't have LOST anything.

Whilst you can't lose what you don't have, you also don't have what you don't 
have. When standing on the shoulders of giants, why deny others a leg-up?

>You speak of value as if I stole something.

I speak of it as if you have a limited monopoly on some of it.

>And why is paying a professional illustrator for an original
>somehow better than me doing the work myself and trying to get
>paid for the work I did?

There's an imbalance between your denying an illustrator work by using the PD 
and yet using copyright to protect your work.

>Then you grossly underestimate just how much growth is possible
>by securing to authors and inventors for a limited time
>exclusive rights to their writings and inventions
>so that they can make money on their work.

Here's my understanding of how this works:

1. Create cultural work.
2. ????
3. Profit!

- Rob.