Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

On 25 May 2005, at 23:03, Greg London wrote:

> 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.

But you cannot sublicense the *original* work under BY-SA. That is,  
someone who has a copy of the work (rather than the original author)  
with this BY-SA license to redistribute cannot sublicense the  
original unaltered work.

I do accept that it is trivial to derive the work and redistribute that.

> > 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.

True. But by my reading of it the license covers both cases: a  
downstream user cannot sublicense the original work, and you cannot  
DRM it either.

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

This is true. But let's consider the work "in distribution" or "in  
circulation". The CC licenses seem (to my mind) to cover the  
distribution of and simple display/performance/publishing/ 
redistribution of the unaltered, original work as a specific case to  
be considered. If you have a copy of a CC-BY work, the original is  
relicensed, and you then publish your copy, you may not change the  
license on or DRM *your* unaltered copy.

I think. IANAL, &c.

> 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.

Yes, if this is the case it does mean that CC-BY can have nothing to  
say about DRM on *derived* works.

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

As I say, I get the impression that there are moves afoot to provide  
better education about the licenses, so hopefully NC will get  
clarified as part of this.

- Rob.