Development of Creative Commons licenses

["J.B. Nicholson-Owens" <jbn AT forestfield.org>]

Ron Kaminsky wrote:
> (I hope this will thread properly - it's a test of Thunderbird
> at the same time; sorry if it/I fail)

Your article showed up as a response to your article which started this 
thread, rather than a response to my article or drew Roberts' article.  The 
References: header offers no way for an article to be seen as a response to 
more than one article, so you're stuck if that's what you wanted to accomplish.

> Yes, you have a point --- on the face of it, (1) is superfluous
> since the copyright will expire. Unfortunately, given the current
> way things are going, no one is sure _when_ it will expire. Having
> an explicit date would enable a third-party preservation agent
> to have a "guaranteed date of release", otherwise its costs are
> open-ended.

Actually, copyright in the US might never expire again and might also apply 
for a seemingly limited time.  Periodic extension and Congressional servitude 
to multinational corporate publishers makes this seemingly paradoxical outcome 
possible.

> Yes, and I am also concerned that the preservation process might be
> legislated out of existence during the period until the release date.

Maybe what you want isn't a new license at all, it's a contract to release the 
work at a certain price on a certain date?  Or maybe you want to buy a copy of 
the work under an amenable license now so that when you want to do the 
preservation work it's just sitting there waiting for you to work on it?

I'd expect the latter to cost more than the former because the former will 
give the licensor time to realize that (most likely) what they have isn't 
worth much money and one more sale is better than no more sales.