Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Branko Collin" <collin AT xs4all.nl>]

On 18 Mar 2005, at 8:18, Sigmascape1 AT cs.com wrote:

> I'd love to see some kind of website that could explain, in basic
> terms, what the copyright law is all about. Yes, I realize that
> various websites already exist that may satisfy this request, but I
> think the site also needs to address why culture is impacted by
> extreme durations of copyright protection. Also, without question, the
> public domain (the commons) needs to be addressed and explained on a
> level that anyone can understand.

In other words, you want your copyright explanation from a certain 
point of view. I think that is the only way it would work, but: I 
think that Creative Commons needs to explain copyright from its point 
of view. 

Although the extreme duration of copyright is related to Creative 
Commons (it's his perceived shrinking of the public domain that made 
Larry Lessig start CC, IIRC), I am not sure that is the aspect of 
copyright that should be highlighted for the benefit of someone 
wishing to choose a license.

As it is, a lot of people understand little to nothing about 
copyright law.

When some ten years ago the internet started to get popular, the 
prevailing notion seemed to be that everything on the internet was 
that everything there was for the taking: once something landed on 
the internet, it was considered free. 

These were the days when Brad Templeton wrote his "10 Big Myths about 
copyright explained" 
(<http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html>). At the time, the 
document seemed to make a lot of sense. The if-it's-on-the-net-it's-
free brigade affected everybody. If you had made a cool site, 
somebody was sure to come along, copy it wholesale and claim it as 
his. Much easier to take that person to task over copyright than over 
ethics.

Nowadays, when actual people are actually getting harased by lawyers, 
Brad's document suddenly seems to be decidedly on the side of strong 
copyright. There is no equivalent document about Fair Use, the Public 
Domain, and making your downloaders feel less like criminals.

Although that document also needs to be written, I feel CC should 
focus on the commons.


-- 
branko collin
collin AT xs4all.nl