Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>]

On 18 Nov 2005, at 18:14, Mia Garlick wrote:

> As you can see from the original proposal, the plan
> initially was that the amendment would apply to all ShareAlike
> provisions in the CC licenses. However, that may not be possible for
> some of the reasons that have been aired on the list to date. We
> welcome people's views on whether this is possible or whether it
> should be limited to just the BY-SA license (if it happens at all).

This sounds like the original intention was that CC-BY-NC-SA work was  
going to be included in this proposal. Which would be even more of a  
break than for BY-SA 2.0, and NC has a much larger audience than SA.  
Including a number of record labels, who would not be happy with  
their NC work being commercialised via the FDL.

> People should also consider making suggestions for how any such
> change (if effected) gets incorporated into the Commons Deed.
> Creative Commons is not looking to create "back doors" to trip people
> up but - as the title of the posting suggests - ensuring that we have
> an interoperable commons.

I understand CC's intentions and I agree wholeheartedly with the aim  
of defragmenting the commons. There should definitely be a  
conversation around this.

But the fact is that modifying SA (or any other CC license) to allow  
work to be taken out from under it and placed under another licence,  
without that license allowing reciprocal relicensing, *will* create a  
one-way door in the CC license. It goes against the whole CC "manage  
your rights" thing.

And even if both licenses are made relicense-compatible, properties  
may be stripped between relicensing, particularly with licenses as  
different as SA and FDL.

Unifying FDL and BY-SA should not be done suddenly and unilaterally,  
rather it should be an aim, if at all, for CC 4.0 and FDL 2. But they  
are such different licenses.

- Rob.