Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Wednesday 02 February 2005 02:30 pm, Greg London wrote:
> Rob Myers said:
> > <email AT greglondon.com> wrote:
> >>holding it all rights reserved, and defending it fiercely against any
> >>attempts to infringe on that content.
> >
> > Nope. That's copyright. Copyright is not free speech.
>
> free speech is a superset including copyright.
> If you get up in front of an audience and ad lib a speech,
> it is not under copyright because it isn't in fixed medium.
> So there are things you can express under Free Speech that
> do not fall under Copyright.

Just because speech can be copyrighted, why does that make copyright a subset 
of speech. Isn't free speech concieved as an inherent right? And, in the US, 
copyrights are not so conceived. Correct?
>
> >>Even if the infringer claims they
> >>are simply making it part of the ongoing conversation.
> >
> > This is the heart of my argument. "Freedom of speech" does not cover the
> > business model of "piracy". Why should it cover the business model of
> > proprietarising Free code?
>
> Copyleft is about protecting copyleft code from being proprietized.
> Once code is contributed to the community under Copyleft,
> then copyleft keeps the work inside the community and
> does nto allow anyone to take it private.

Wrong, the author(s) can take the work private and derivatives private and 
out 
of the community.
>
> The individual is prevented from creating a derived work that is private.

The author is an individual who is not so prevented.
>
> Copyleft won't allow it.

Copyleft will allow the author to do so.
>
> But copyright WILL allow it.
> You can create a proprietary fork of someone's BSD code.
> Which means copyright is a superset of copyleft.
> And which means copyright allows individuals do more
> than copyleft allows.

If BSD was the most common form of copyright, your case would ahve more 
wieght 
in the real world. But, as things stand, as far aas I can see, All Rights 
reserved is the most common form of copyright usage and individuals can do 
less with these works than they can with GPL works. So practically, speeking, 
if you pull out the subset of copyrighted works that are copylefted. On the 
whole, individuals have more freedom with the totality of the copylefted 
works than they have with the totality of the remaining copyrighted works. 
When this ratio changes, I may take your arguments more seriously as pertains 
to the real world and day to day practicalities. (SP?) I do not mean to be 
insulting or particularly confrontational in anything said there.
>
> >>Copyleft is about preventing individual ownership
> >>to protect the community as a whole.

It is not necessary to see it this way. I can be thought of as protecting all 
individuals from other individuals. If not, why not?
> >
> > A community consists of individuals. If freedom is conceived of as
> > unconstrained action, there are various "freedoms" that must be removed
> > from individuals to ensure the freedom of individuals.
>
> Read your bill of rights.
> They are all rights guaranteed to the individual
> by restricting what the state can do.
>
> Copyleft guarantees the work will remain in the COMMUNITY
> by restricting what an INDIVIDUAL can do.

Copyrights are a creation of the state which limits the freedoms of 
individuals. Right? It gives a non-inherent right to some people to limit the 
inherent rights of others. Right? Copyleft can be seen as an effort to use 
copyrights to reverse some of those restrictions and limit the rights of 
those granted extra rights to restrict the rights of those not granted those 
extra rights. Right?
>
> The metaphor equating copyleft with Freedom of Speech
> or any other rights ignores the fact that every right
> guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are rights guaranteed
> to the individual, rights that restrict the community or state.

Again not a metaphor, just a hint that freedom does not refer to cost. Think 
of it as a hint. Can you come up with a better hint if this one causes you 
real problems?
>
> Copyleft guarantees the right to code, the right to derive,
> the right to distribute derivations of other people's code,
> but this is a COMMUNITY right. The individual is restricted
> from creating a derived version of someone's code, compiling
> it, and distributing a binary. The INDIVIDUAL is restricted
> for the benefit of the COMMUNITY.

The individual is restricted for the benefit of other individuals?
>
> This is the anti-thesis of how every right guaranteed in
> the Bill of Rights works.
>
> First amendment:
> Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech.

Well, how did they pass the copyright laws then? Do they abridge freedom of 
speech?
>
> Copyleft:
> Individuals cannot distribute derivative works
> of community code unless they also distribute
> the source code to the community.

This would only be so if copyleft were the whole game. No one that I know of 
would have pushed for copyleft in the absence of copyright. So to speculate 
on life as it would be if only copyleft existed is pointless at this 
juncture.

all the best,

drew