Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Wrye Modder <wrye_modder AT yahoo.com>]

--- Chris Lott <chris.lott AT gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/21/05, Wrye Modder <wrye_modder AT yahoo.com> wrote:
> > It seems to me that CC licenses were mostly predicated around the notion
> of
> > a single creative work, in which derivative works are little more than
> > recasts of the original. E.g., a translation of a book, a play version of
> a
> > story, etc.
> 
> This doesn't make much sense considering the CC's constant
> reinforcement of using their licenses as part of "remix culture" all
> the examples of which are far more than simple translations or
> recasting...

Hmmm... But isn't almost all sampling single-generational? Certainly CC
sampling licenses don't well support multi-generational sampling (e.g.,
samples of samples of samples of samples) -- the attribution-copyright-license
list would be horrendous. So, I think that the thrust of my point still stands
-- that the licenses were not designed for works of complex changing
authorship. 

For complex authorship, I see two main types: 1) Pass-around works - works
which are continuously passed around and modified/upgraded. (E.g., wikis, some
game mods) 2) Componentized works - works that contain components which are
desired to be kept under different licenses. 

Pass-around works are well served by SA licenses, but ill-served by BY
licenses -- the attribution list does not scale well. The current 2.5 contain
an attribution clause which can be triggered, but this is not well publicized
and has to be triggered from outside the license. Perhaps it would desirable
to have a plain SA (non-BY) license. (Yep, CC used to have such licenses. And
still does in 1.0?)

For componentized works, there's often a desire/need to treat the components
separately from the main work. That's what I've run into with game mods, but
again the CC licenses don't handle this. (Sampling licenses don't apply since
the whole work is used, and the usage is certainly more than just a 
collection.)

Wrye Morrowind: http://home.earthlink.net/~wrye_modder/morrowind.html