Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Wednesday 13 July 2005 01:46 am, Takemoto wrote:
> 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).

There is some truth to this and I can personally attest to it in that I 
prefer 
to read my books (novels)  in a bound edition, however, for certain types of 
books, I want some sort of binding that can lay flat. However, I think that 
we have not yet really begun to discover the benefits of having all of our 
books in digital form and searchable and indexable.

Since purely paper books would not have this searchable and indexable, the 
original site would have some advantages and the paper book would have some 
advantages.

Also, depending on the nature of the book, the site might be more up to date.

Also, someone wanting to make a derivative work or corrections/additions 
would 
find the digital version to be an advantage.

>
> 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 .

To me, one of the big advantages of the GPL is its copyleft nature. Think 
BY-SA. It would be interesting to see which printers will bother printing 
copyleft books. Would most traditional publishing houses want to handle such 
titles?
>
> 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
>
More later, gotta get my son ready for school.

all the best,

drew
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