Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Takemoto" <tim AT yamaguchi-u.ac.jp>]

Dear Cc-licence users. 

The following is the result of quite a lot of musing on this issue but
I still have a long way to go. 

Why is the open source software licence so successful?

I am an open source software user and author. Like many others, 
I have been impressed with the developments in that field for some 
time. The application of the GNU licence has helped (some at least) 
developers and users alike. 

It seems to me that softare and open source go so well together
because of the low costs of distribution. 

In the case of software there is little advantage to be gained by 
having the box. All that one needs is the code, and the code itself 
is transferred through the ether, free of charge if one has access 
to the Internet. 

Hence if someone releases some software as open source, and especially 
if the developer retains copyright of the name of the software, then there 
is very little advantage to be gained by distributing the software through
 any other means than by access to the developers site. Even if others 
develop a new site, then it has no intrinsic advantage (it is just another
URL) and one intrinsic disadvantange (it is older, and presumably less well 
known). 
This means that the developer may gain
1) Publicity
2) Support
3) Bug reports
4) Co-developers
5) Requests for customisation

I think that it is the zero cost of distribution, and the concomitant lack 
of advantage in alternative methods of distribution, that means that 
the there tends to be a sole, source distribution centre, resulting in 
the benefits above. 

In the case of written works however, readers are still inclinded
to favour books. I prefer to read a book made of paper than a
book from my television screen. This is very different to the case
of software (where no one really wants the box).

Hence if someone were to release a textbook open source (and
there are people doing this at wikibooks) then there is a strong
possibility that end users will not come back to the website,
but rather print the book and even sell it since distribution of
the printed word (unlike software) is still better served by books
than the Net . 

It seems to me that the binding of a book, that holds together
many items of information on a related topic is akin to a super 
URL. It binds things together, and also brings porability, bringing
the information to the information retrievale devices (eyes) for
which the information was designed. 

So long as people have an urge to possess things that are 
lumped together other than by virtue of being at the same 
URL, i.e. as long as people have an urge to posses books, 
then "open source" "creative commons" type licences will 
have less benefit for authors than their counter parts in software.  

I suggest therefore that the creative commons create a futher 
licence that attempts to emulate the situation pertaining in the 
software field to the area of the written word. 

This might be a un-bound licence, giving the users the right to use,
print out, change, and even sell the materials so long as they do
not put it in a binding (other than in the third world, perhaps). As
long as people are not allowed to create another compilation-to-beat
the original compilation, i.e. as long as they are not allowed to create
a book which might beat the original URL, by binding the information
there available, then users would, as in the case of software, be
encouraged to return to the homepage to print out the information.
And if they return to the URL then the creator is likely to incur
the sorts of benefits availabel to GNU software programmers. 

Is there a licence like this already?

Tim

Timothy Takemoto