Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Thursday 24 March 2005 01:13 pm, Peter Knupfer, H-Net wrote:
> drew Roberts wrote:
> > Now, to actually get to some meat...
> >
> > Do you know of any way in law to accomplish what is wanted with respect
> > to mortal rights?
> >
> > all the best,
> >
> > drew
> > _______________________________________________
>
> My sources tell me that within the confines of the CC license in the US,
> for any use that does not require permission (such as incorporation in a
> collective work) or is permitted under the license, the answer is no
> (except for certain audiovisual works that do have limited moral rights
> protections).  Outside of the license, one can exercise moral rights by
> simply refusing permission.

The problem I see with moral rights in the context of, say CC BY-SA is that 
the license is designed to allow sharing, derivative works, etc. Now, with 
you being unable to waive moral rights. Although the person building on you 
work that is released under BY-SA has a license to do so, they don't really 
have a license (or at least any real, dependable rights as a result of the 
license) as these rights can be trumped by the creator's assertion of his 
moral rights.

Is this a fair statement. The question I was trying to ask was whether you 
knew of anyway to get around this problem of sharing in a community way which 
the ability to stop the sharing of works you have given a license for as a 
result of asserting your moral rights.

I am unlikely to spend any significant time or money building on another 
person's BY-SA work where they can then assert their moral rights and prevent 
me from distributing my work that was built on theirs. This would seem to go 
against the whole (purpose for the creation)/(spirit) of this particular 
license in the first place.

Is this a little clearer?
>
> These are fairly serious issues for scholars who are sharing documents
> or putting up preprints that can be snatched and inserted into
> anthologies in ways that distort the original work's meaning.  

Certainly, and for writers as well to tell the truth. Perhaps we need to 
develop better skills as a society to detect these sorts of abuses while 
still allowing them on legal grounds. (Perhaps not everything that is wrong 
should be against the law?)

all the best,

drew