Development of Creative Commons licenses

[wiki_tomos <wiki_tomos AT inter7.jp>]

(Note: I am not a lawyer or even law school student. My views in this email 
are my personal opinions.)

Regarding <project-name> attribution, here is my take, which no one seemed 
to have suggested so far. 

1) Authors have a right to use pseudonyms.

2) A group of authors are free to use a shared pseudonym in certain cases. 
If I use a pseudonym "Stephen King" or "Larry Lessig" that would be a 
problem, but working on a project and using a shared pseudonym for the 
project's outputs is probably not problematic in terms of unfair 
competition law (of the U.S.) or copyright laws (of other countries 
when applicable). 

3) A shared pseudonym could reasonably be a project name when the works 
released are from the project. 

4) The wiki license draft is not substantively different in terms of its 
grants, restrictions, etc. It merely clarifies (and therefore reminds people) 
that they can use a shared pseudonym. 

5) The wiki license draft does not require authors to give up rights to 
attribution, it merely gives an explicit option for authors to exercise the 
right to use a pseudonym. 

6) Authors do not give up copyright altogether, either. For example, making 
a contribution to a wiki is not like creating a copyrightable work for a 
company as a part of employment. In the latter case, the copyright may all 
belong to the company, not the employer. In case of Wiki contribution using 
this type of CC-by license, authors remain authors and copyright holders. 

7) One consequence of 6) is that if I contribute my original writing 
to a wiki using this license, I can still later publish the same writing 
under my real name or other pseudonym that I choose, with the same or a 
different license terms. All of this is possible because I am the author of 
that piece. 

8) Another consequence of 6) is that the project team or a project leader 
cannot behave as if it/he is the author. Changing license terms is not 
possible 
without each contributors' permission, even though those contributors are all 
identified by the same pseudonym. Not complying with the CC-by license 
restrictions, etc. result in license termination, even if that is done by 
the project team or leader. Again, this is because each contributor remains 
to be an author & copyright holder. 

How do you think? My view is not based on professional knowledge of law, and 
my personal opinions, so I would appreciate corrections and objections. 

Best, 

Tomos



----- Original Message -----
From: Greg London <email AT greglondon.com>
To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts 
<cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sun, 3 Apr 2005 23:05:18 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Wiki license 0.5 beta



>
>Brian Schack said:
>> On Mar 28, 2005, at 1:47 PM, Greg London wrote:
>>> maybe someday, people will be able to waive attribution or
>>> prohibit attribution completely. Attribuiton is a market economy
>>> element. Gift economy licenses ought to have a way to waive it
>>> or even prevent it completely.
>> According to Homesteading the Noosphere by Eric Raymond, a very
>> important essay on open source gift culture,
>> "Removing a person's name from a project history, credits, or
>> maintainer list is absolutely not done without the person's explicit
>> consent."
>
>I never said "remove" someone's attribution.
>
>I'm saying there ought to be a license so that
>authors who do not want attribution for their work
>can waive it. (AttributionWaived) The CC licenses
>are not clear on how to waive attribution,
>even though every CC license has attribution
>built in. (is anyone surprised that the pie-chart
>of licenses has "attribution" taking up most of
>the pie?)
>
>And that if an author wants to prevent downstream
>authors from adding attribution as a requirement
>then that could be an option as well.
>(AttributionProhibited) This currently is not a
>license option under CC.
>
>No one is suggesting taking someone else's work
>that was licensed as to require attribution and
>stripping their name off their work.
>
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