Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

> However, I would not mind if a
> commercial enterprise uses my work, let's say, after five years after the
> initial publishing date. This could increase interest in my work and
> publicity.

The "Founders Copyright" is a license that CC has that
protects a work for 14 years and then it becomes public
domain. Apparently it has gotten little use.

I don't know if anyone has done a study to determine why,
but my gut tells me that its because a time-release license
means that derived works have to wait years from one version
to the next.  Imagine if someone made code available for Linux,
but no one could change it or fix bugs for 5 years. It slows the
turn-around time down to the point that a gift economy can't
do its magic.

> If many people would choose
> such an option, it would automatically enhance the compatibility
> of free content over time.

It wouldn't help compatibility because it would still operate as
two licenses. The first five years would be NonCommercial.
After that, commercial use would be allowed. Any work that used
this approach would start out incompatible with licenses that allow
commercial use. having two licenses with a time-release mechanism
to automatically handle the switch doesn't change this incompatibility.

Greg London
-- 
Bounty Hunters: Metaphors for Fair IP laws
http://www.greglondon.com/bountyhunters/