Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Wednesday 02 February 2005 10:01 am, Greg London wrote:
> Rob Myers said:
> > On 1 Feb 2005, at 21:05, Greg London wrote:
> >> Free speech lets me create and distribute proprietary forks of someone
> >> else's BSD code.
> >
> > No, that's censorship. It is censorship of the immediate code and it is
> > censorship of the ongoing conversation.
>
> Bwah hah ha HA! yeah, right.
>
> free speech includes writing a book that dissents against the government,
> holding it all rights reserved, and defending it fiercely against any
> attempts to infringe on that content. Even if the infringer claims they
> are simply making it part of the ongoing conversation.
>
> Can we stop redefining words like censorship to mean "All Rights
> Reserved"???
>
> That definition only works in the "All copyright is evil" cult, because
> ANY restriction must inherently be evil. All works should be Public Domain.
> Any attempts to create a proprietary work can only be for evil doers.
>
> Please stop drinking the Kool-Aid, and lets deal with the real world here.
>
> The real world allows proprietary works.
> The real world also allows free speech.
> Free speech can include proprietary works.
> Free speech is protected against censorship.
> Censorship is anything intended to stifle dissent.
>
> If you insist on calling "All Rights Reserved" a form of Censorship,
> then I'll stop wasting my time discussing this with folks who
> live in fantasy land.
>
> >> Copyleft isn't free as in free speech.
> >> It is community-centric.
> >
> > Is freedom of speech an individual right or a community responsibility?
>
> Free Speech is an individual right.
> The STATE (community) is prohibited from censoring any INDIVIDUAL
> based on their political ideas or beliefs.
>
> >> Individuals are not allowed to make proprietary forks
> >> of someone else's copyleft code.
> >
> > And people aren't allowed to make proprietary forks of proprietary
> > code. They aren't allowed to make copyleft forks of proprietary code
> > either. So how is proprietary code more free, or better for freedom,
> > than copyleft code? How does it result in programmers who have more
> > rights, who are freer?
>
> Because copyright allows me to make a proprietary fork of BSD code.
> Copyright includes the full spectrum of rights from all rights reserved
> to public domain and copyleft in between.

Copyright does not allow you to make a "proprietary" fork of another's 
"proprietary" work.

I don't think it is correct to call a work in the public domain a copyrighted 
work. Copyright law may discuss/define the public domain, but works in the 
public domain are not copyrighted. They were either never copyrighted, or 
their copyrights have lapsed/expired. Right?
>
> Copyleft includes only a subset of copyright.
> Anything that is copyleft and anything that is public domain or BSD.
>
> Draw the set of copyleft ONLY, and there is no option to take a public
> domain work and make it proprietary. that is OUTSIDE of copyleft.
> It is something you CANNOT DO in copyleft. You need copyright law to do it.

There is no copyleft law, copyleft is copyright applied in a certain way. All 
rights reserved is copyright lay applied in a certain way. Right?
>
> The individual cannot make a proprietary fork in a world where only
> copyleft exists.

We don't live in that world. Should we or shouldn't we is another discussion, 
but we don't.
>
> Copyleft is all about taking works created by individuals,
> and adding it to the community pool of works,
> and making sure no one can take them OUT of the community pool.

In the world in which we live. I can put a work in the copyleft pool. I can 
taked the same work and put it in the "proprietary" pool. I can also put a 
derivative work in the "proprietary" pool, even if I don't put it in the 
copyleft pool. I can also sell the rights to make derivative works of the 
copyleft work and keep them "proprietary"... Right?
>
> That isn't about individual freedom being protected against
> abuse by the community or state. That's about creating and
> protecting a community and protecting against individuals
> who could otherwise create proprietary forks.
>
> Simple argument,
> copyleft is a subset of all that is copyright.
> If only copyleft existed, you would not have the
> same individual freedoms that you do now with copyright
> as a superset. You would not be able to create a proprietary
> work in a world where only copyleft existed.

Again, we don't live in that world.
>
> Copyleft is about preventing individual ownership
> to protect the community as a whole.

In the world in which we live, copyleft does not prevent individual 
ownership. 
If I GPL a program I wrote, I still own the copyrights to it, I have just 
given a license to use the work I own under certain conditions. I am 
preventing an individual from taking MY WORK and makeing a derivative work 
which he then locks me out of. If copyleft did not exist and I released the 
same work under the standard copyright all rights reserved, those same 
restrictions would exist for that individual. In the world in which we live, 
that individual can pay me in either situation (copyleft or all rights 
reserved0 and I can allow him to make that derivative work. Right?

all the best,

drew