Development of Creative Commons licenses

[wiki_tomos <wiki_tomos AT inter7.jp>]

Hi. 

>>How do you know the person who posted the creative work really is the 
>>rightful owner of that work? 

I understand this quite well, I think. Wikipedia (not a CC-based project, but 
a copylefted project) deals with this problem constantly. I have seen all 
kinds of 
contributions being made, some based on wrong understanding of copyright, 
some 
seemingly intentional infringement, some based on hasty judgment without 
careful 
checking of rights subsisting in a work, and so on. 

>>The distributor is as liable as the creator in the use of these uncleared 
>>samples.

I suppose this is not the case. 

Regarding liabilities, CCPL version 1.0 contained some warranties. I am not a 
lawyer, 
so I cannot determine the exact legal effect of the warranty, but it seems 
that, 
under some laws, part of the liability goes to the licensor, not the 
licensee, if 
you are using the CCPL-1.0'd works.  

(See, for example, section 5 of this license text: 
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0/legalcode ) 

Also, in countries like the U.S. and Japan, I think you can avoid some 
liability 
risks by being a kind of passive distributor - the one who does not choose 
what to 
distribute, but simply carries what other people decided to post/ distribute. 
Well, 
again, I am not a lawyer, so I might be wrong. And even if I am right, 
Grokster 
case or a new legislation might change the situation. 

>>Another practical business problem I see with the CC license is the No DRM 
>>restriction. 
...
>>So distribution methods such as encrypted DVDs, digital distribution 
>>through commercial 
>>sites such as iTunes, digital satellite broadcasts, digital radio 
>>broadcasts or even 
>>ringtones or ringtunes will violate the CC licenses.

The DRM restriction you are referring to is this part, I suppose :  
"You may not distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or publicly 
digitally 
perform the Work with any technological measures that control access or use 
of the 
Work in a manner inconsistent with the terms of this License Agreement."
(taken from 4.a of CC-by 2.0)

My impression has been that meaning of this restriction is not very clear. 
Some example 
might help thining about the scope of the issue:

- Encrypting a work in the process of transmission so that other people 
cannot intercept 
it. (A part privacy question.)
- Limiting the amount of daily bandwidth usage of server that hosts CCPL'd 
works.
- To chose a hosting service with a bandwidth cap for the distribution of 
CCPL'd works. 
- Block someone's attempt to access my laptop computer via wireless 
connection when I have 
some CCPL'd works in Shared Documents folder. 
- Lock the door to my house so that uninvited strangers cannot come in. (The 
classic example.)
- Offering an access to the same file in multiple ways - some requires a 
membership, others 
don't.  

Um.. I am afraid my examples may not be that thought-provoking. But I have 
some vague expectation 
that not everything that could possibly be argued as technological measures 
to control access or 
use is really restricted by the license. 


Best, 


Tomos

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sincaglia, Nicolas" <nsincaglia AT musicnow.com>
To: Discussion on the Creative Commons license drafts 
<cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>, Discussion on the Creative Commons license 
drafts <cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sun, 1 May 2005 10:06:49 -0500
Subject: Re: RE: Confusion over conflicting licenses