Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Daniel Carrera <dcarrera AT math.umd.edu>]

Greg London wrote:
> I can't seem to find anything on the CC website to
> explain why the Public Domain dedication (PDD) requires
> you to give CC your email address etc to get the license.
> 
> Is PDD not like a license that you put on your work?

PD is not a license. It means that you give up all rights to the work 
until the end of time. My understanding is that the registration is so 
that there is a record that the work is public domain, and that there be a 
date attached to that record. So, if someone later were to claim ownership 
over the work, there would be evidence, with a datestamp, that this work 
is public domain.


> Do you assign copyright over to CC or something?

Nope. PD means you give up copyright.

> Or does CC put the extra stuff in the way just to make sure
> someone doesn't use PDD without knowing what the heck
> it is they are about to do?

Well, that's probably a fortunate consequence. You should definitely 
understand what PD is before you release work under it. PD means that you 
no longer claim any rights, or any form of ownership over the work. It 
becomes free as the air.

I think that the purpose of the email, and the confirmation, is to raise 
the level of awareness of what you are doing when you use PD.

> I'm nearly finished with a work and will either be putting
> it under CC-BY or just go with PDD and noticed how different
> the interface to them seems to be.

CC-BY (and every other license) will be totally different from PD.

PD is not a license. If you use CC-BY, you retain ownership of your work. 
And you allow people to use it under certain restrictions.

May I ask, what is the work in question? Maybe I can offer an opinion on 
which is better.

Cheers,
-- 
Daniel Carrera          | I don't want it perfect,
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