Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

> On 25 May 2005, at 18:47, Greg London wrote:
>
>> For a license that allows proprietary forks,
>> what's the point of demanding the original
>> must be transmitted "in the clear"?
>
> It ensures that proprietary forks can always be made?

I think the DRM clause is irrelevant to anything
that isn't CC-SA. Anything that is not CC-SA can
add more restrictions to the work, either through
a license or through DRM. six of one, half dozen
of the other.

>From a "rights" point of view, it makes no difference
to me if someone restricts a work via license or via
DRM, the work has been restricted.

The only possible difference I can see is someone
using DRM to restrict the work beyond what is allowed
by fair use. If Creative Commons wants to take a
political stand against DRM for this reason
(and for the reasons that DRM can invoke the
DMCA anti-circumvention clause), then I'd say keep
the clause.

But it isn't about "protecting" a work
if the work isn't CC-SA, since it's a
no brainer to relicense.


> But 4a seems to cover the original work *only*. Are the parts of the
> original work in the derivative work still covered by the terms
> covering the original work? Would the derived work be able to DRM the
> parts of the original BY-SA work that it includes without breaking
> that clause by virtue of their being actually part of a new
> derivative work?

I think any derivative work is legally considered to
be an atomic work, rather than an aggregation.
So once you combine multiple works into a single
derivative, you end up with a single work with
a single license, and the license must apply
to the whole work.


> Doesn't noncommercial's weirdness comes from noncommercial being a
> phrase with a particular legal meaning?

I don't know. Apparently answering that question qualifies
as "legal advice" and so Creative Commons has rigged for
silent running. Perhaps they'll surface again at some point
in the future.

As it is, I see massive loopholes in the NonCommercial
and I'd like to get clarity on what exactly it means.

Greg

Bounty Hunters: Metaphors for Fair IP laws
http://www.greglondon.com/bountyhunters/