Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Antoine <antoine AT pitrou.net>]

Hi Daniel, Isabelle, and everyone,

> Alright, fair enough. But how would this affect digital work? How do you 
> distinguish between "original" and "copy"? When you send me a photograph 
> by email, your computer makes a copy and sends it to me. When I save it, 
> my computer makes another copy. When you open the photograph, your 
> computer makes a copy and puts it in RAM.
> 
> In the digital world, everything is a copy.
> 
> How would the FAL deal with a digital work? (this is my primary area of 
> interest).

Well, you gave the answer above: in the digital world, everything is a
copy!
Thus, simply, the FAL when applied to digital works gives the same
rights as to copies of non-digital works: permission to modify, copy,
distribute - with the well-known attribution and copyleft/sharealike
conditions.

The means of reproduction (which produces a copy from the original) are
left to the user's will. Whether the copy is made by hand or
automatically (e.g. by downloading/caching things to a hard drive) is an
irrelevant detail for the interpretation of the FAL. The important thing
is that since you operate on a copy, you don't alter the original work,
thus you don't violate the author's most basic moral rights.


Let's check it in the terms of the FAL... This is how the FAL defines
"the Original":

        - The Original (the work's source or resource) :
        A dated example of the work, of its definition, of its partition
        or of its program which the originator provides as the reference
        for all future updatings, interpretations, copies or
        reproductions.
        
As you see, when providing an Original, the author decides what is the
"reference" for copies. For a digital work, the Original will simply be
the file which the author will have uploaded to a Web site, sent to a
mailing-list, whatever. Then, by taking the file, anyone is obviously
making a "Copy" of the work, leaving the "Original" (as defined by the
FAL) untouched - since a "Copy" according to the FAL is just "any
reproduction of an original as defined by this license".


>  From my current understanding, I think I would use the FAL for physical 
> works and the BY-SA for digital works. But that's just an opinion.

The FAL is often used for digital works (music, literature, graphics,
etc.), even including works that are not works of art (e.g. articles,
essays). I believe there are also a few instances of software put under
the FAL, although this should not be a recommended practice.


(hoping my explanation was clear)

Best regards

Antoine.