Development of Creative Commons licenses

[rob AT robmyers.org]

Quoting Christian Fredrik Kalager Schaller <christian AT fluendo.com>:

> I think that the non-commercial option is the biggest mistake CC ever
> made,

NC does not solve any of the problems that CC was set up to solve (other than
allowing people to "manage their rights", which was a task created by CC).

NC creates a secondary "permission culture" where you must ask to use work
commercially. Orphan works will still not be usable in this way. And if a work
available under NC is appropriated and the case goes to court this will surely
affect any Fair Use defense (IANAL).

NC does not help create an alternative to monopolistic media 
distributors. It is
viewed as a financial tool or an act of temporary generosity that won't hurt
your real career or business model too much.

But those of us who believe NC is bad are in the minority. NC is by far CC's
most popular license module.

The best thing you can say about NC is that it formalises the "social 
contract"
that fans feel they have with producers anyway.

> If CC ditched the whole non-commercial part it might mean that less
> content in total would be contributed short term, but I am sure it would
> also mean that a lot of the stuff which today gets marked as
> non-commercial would still be made available and long term CC content
> would be more useful and probably more plentiful.

I agree. The GPL has served to bring software into the Free Software 
world that
would otherwise have been commercial. Stallman's "art for art's sake" view of
code is not matched by the NC view of art that makes sure that exploitative or
outdated busness models remain sacrosanct. Ironically, it is the GPL that has
created a multi-million dollar industry and ensured that programmers have
access to more code.

- Rob.