Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

On Sunday 16 October 2005 08:04 am, Takemoto wrote:
> Dear CC licencers
>
> I posted before about licences for text. Now I am wondering about the
> meaning of "share alike," and how alikeness can be redefined.
>
> My starting point is that I believe that the Open Source software
> (e.g. GNU)  licences are excellent, and very effective, as many do.
>
> But in the open source software community of which I am a member, still
> many people seem to think that the GNU is a sort of utopia, a caring,
> sharing, age of aquarius, when in fact, this licence is just very good
> business practice.

I do not agree that it is "JUST very good business practice" - it may be good 
business practice, but that certainly is not all it is.
>
> When someone releases software on a GNU licence holding copyright
> of the URL from which they are distributing the software, they are onto
> a good thing.
>
> If, as part of the licence (and this is the same for CC
> attributionlicences) the software contains that copyrighted URL then all
> subsequent users are only one click away from the source: the place where
> the latest version can be downloaded, the place to get bugfixes, the nexus
> of the community, and support.

I think you are missing a lot in the dynamics. As a debian user, I often have 
little need of going to the primary author's site. All I need to do is:

apt-cache search foo
aptitude install foo

If the only benefits were the ones you imagine/stare, I don't think things 
would be working as well as they do.
>
> This means that the owner of the URL (and its copyright) reaps a reward
> for releasing their work. Users are going to keep coming back.

Often, the work is its own reward as now you can do something that formerly 
you could not. Since many people are doing this, you can use their work and 
they can use yours. Ignore those who don't contribute for a while. Those that 
do, write software for each other and end up with more software for less 
effort than they could have written themselves and for less money than they 
could have purchased similar software for with better licenses or certainly 
than they could have paid someone to write for them with equal licenses.
>
> However, while software is always used on computers, and most computers
> are connected to the internet, texts (books, articles, etc.) are often
> distributed on paper.
>
> Users of texts (readers) are not one click away from the source. They
> often have no reason to return to 'the source'.

Instead of focusing on the readers, think of other writers who may wish to 
make use of what has been written and released under a copyleft type license.
>
> This means that when a person releases their text, then they often
> do not reap the same rewards.
>
> I speak from a certain amount of experience. I belong to an open
> source community where I recieve software, and contribute and
> recieve support. It works very well. The developers control the means
> of distribution, and (I think) it is profitable for them. The system
> works very well.

I don't know about your open source community, but with Free Software, the 
developers do not control the means of distribution. At any time, a simple 
fork removes what control they have from them. This is a key point in how 
things work.
>
> At the same time, on the same community, there is a text based
> resource sharing space, which almost no one contribues to.
>
> At first sight, this seems strange. There are tens of thousands of
> people using the open source software, but very very few people
> sharing content (the files that that software uses.)

I think those of us who think copyleft can work in the "content" realm need 
to 
get moving and produce a pool of copyleft content and see what happens. (I do 
feel that no "content" license that I am aware of is up to GPL standards 
yet.)

Here is a beginning that I have made:

http://www.ourmedia.org/user/17145

>
> I am convinced that his has very little to do with levels of generosity,
> or 'time for people to get used to the concept'. It has a lot to do with
> the fact that there are not the same benefits for text creators to share,
> as there are for software developers to share.

I think there is not a big enough pool of resources on the content side for 
us 
to get a handle on the possible benefits yet.
>
> So, how do we replicate the success of the GNU licence?
>
> I suggested an "unbound licence" in the past. I think that was a mistake.
> It is good that others bind the text that one produces into a book.
> That makes the content more valuable to them.
>
> The important point is the distribution and community *network*.
> Does the network become dispersed, shattered? Or does the network
> have a center, a nexus, and thus cohesion? When there is a network that
> encourages cohesion, then creators are rewarded for their contributions,
> by the subsequent cooperation and creation of others.
>
> How can this be achieved in a cc licence on text?
>
> The "Atribution Share Alike" licence seems to come the closest.
>
> But it is not clear to me what the meaning of "share alike" is.
> How "alike" does the sharing have to be? I guess that the the
> similarity, the "alike-ness" only refers to having the same licence.
>
> I don't think that this is enough, in the world of text, to ensure the
> sort of postive cohesion achieved by the GNU in the world of
> software.
>
> Hence
>
> "Attribution Share HERE alike"
> or
> "Share HERE alike"
>
> might work. By that I mean that all all derivative works must be
> shared at the site from where they were downloaded.
>
> Is there any licence like this? Are there any plans to chance "share
> alike" in a similar way to that in which "attribution" changed?
>
> At first "attribution" only meant the text. Now we must attribute to the
> URL. Similarly, "share alike" means only comprising the same text, but
> is there any chance it may be extended to mean "at the same URL."

This will not fly.
>
> I think that CC licences are going to change the way that people
> do business.

In the long run, I expect we will see BY-SA and BY being the big winners and 
the NC and possibly the ND options falling away. In the short term, I expect 
the NC and ND options to be way more popular.

>
> But I don't think that we are quite there yet.

I tend to agree, but I see different problems and haven't really figured a 
way 
to solve them in the CC context yet. (I have some ideas I am working on in 
the background, but they are not ready yet.)
>
> Timothy
>
Good to hear your thoughts. Have you released any content BY-SA or BY?

all the best,

drew
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