Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <robmyers AT mac.com>]

http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5457

When cc-wiki was announced I was worried that allowing attribution to  
an organisation would allow WMIMWYIM (What's Mine Is Mine What's  
Yours Is Mine) for the 'reputation economy'. The first use of cc- 
wiki, to ensure that dozens of people's names don't have to appear on  
the cover of Code 2.0 bore this out, and I can imagine how popular cc- 
wiki would have been for non-wiki projects.

So a license that requires attribution to an organisation may be  
dangerous, even if it fits the social contract for Wikis (I cannot  
comment on this as I'm not much of a Wikitarian). It could also be  
confusing for enforcing license violations, as only the copyright  
holder can enforce a license IIRC, and if the license says "MyWiki"  
but the work was submitted by psuedonym AT dead-isp.com, there's a problem.

The cases Mia lists of colleges or journals requiring attribution  
show that attribution can become even more of an "advertising  
clause" (as in the original BSD license). I don't want to derive from  
work that has a political party, activist outfit, particular church  
or another interest group's members sticking a plug for their pet  
cause in on a work I want to derive from via 2.5 attribution. Having  
a URL you have to give is bad enough (you can create a "linkback  
bomb" to advertise your cause), being able to list a cause in the  
license block would be terrible. Is this a possibility with 2.5  
attribution?

If I submit work to a German (for example) wiki and the 2.5  
attribution is to the wiki, my Moral Right of Attribution is still  
inalienable, and I can still demand to be identified as the author of  
the work, I think.

But then the language is voluntary or customisable, then we are right  
back to where we were with waving attribution. People have to be  
asked, or it has to be arranged up front, or people forget.

I think this is a maturity issue for Wikis (in the sense that many  
are now mature projects and have some work to do to reflect this)  
rather than something that requires creating a potentially misusable  
clause in the core CC licenses or a definitely misuable cc-wiki license.

I do see how enabling Wikipedia-style projects to keep their low  
barrier to contribution whilst removing bookkeeping headaches could  
be good. But this will affect projects other than wikis, possibly in  
undesirable ways, and wikis are the projects that can best keep track  
of complex attribution anyway.

*If* attribution is important to Wiki users, and *if* people  
contribute to wikis on the understanding that their work will be part  
of the wiki, then arguments about what happens for the book version  
(for example) are arguments about  how best to misuse contributors  
work. Would the wiki operators who want attribution to their project  
rather than to individuals be happy with a scheme that transferred  
copyright to CC and attributed the CC-Wiki-Real-Commons-License  
rather than any given wiki? If not, why not? It would solve more  
problems than having to attribute to people's wikis.

- Rob.