Development of Creative Commons licenses

[drew Roberts <zotz AT 100jamz.com>]

On Monday 06 March 2006 06:14 pm, Greg London wrote:
> > I raised an earlier question, which I think is a good one. If people
> > aren't reusing content, why not? What rights would they like that they
> > either aren't getting or which they may have but aren't clear?
>
> I think part of hte cause is that this
> http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/5293
> shows that three big slices of licenses are
>
> BY-NC
> BY-NC-ND
> BY-NC-SA
>
> Together, these three constitute a full 72% of the distribution.
> Which means only 25% of CC licensed works allow commercial use.
>
> Given that, 75% of works are limited in their reuse to noncommercial
> uses. As soon as you have a non-commercial restriction, the only
> reuse you'll commonly see are individuals doing onesy-twosey's of
> a work, fan fiction, stuff like that. You don't neccesarily see a
> large group of people advocating to contribute to a gift economy
> that is restricted to noncommercial uses. Gift economies spring
> up where people can see their contribution will make the biggest
> difference the biggest impact, the biggest effect. And contributing
> to something that has a major, non-commercial-only, restriction
> on it, isn't quite nearly as inspiring as contributing to something
> that could, say, get picked up someone like RedHat who puts your
> contribution and advertises/distributes it so even more people
> can get your cnotribution.
>
> Gift economies require inspiration, and contributing to something
> that may become commercially successful can inspire a lot of people
> to contribute their time and energy for free.
>
> If you have a non-commercial limitation, you can still find
> inspiration, but you'll need to look for it.
>
> THere is also a problem with getting people to contribute
> their time and energy for free when someone else is holding
> the rights to make money off of it. It's a weird sort of
> thing that makes people not want to give to a thing that
> could benefit the original author who is holding back
> comercial rights. Why donate when it will benefit John,
> the guy who did the original work?
>
> Which also brings up the concern of commercial competion.
> A work licensed NonCommercialOnly could get a gift economy
> around it, but if it becomes successful and gets picked up
> commercially, the original holder can use their commercial
> rights to outrun anything the gift economy did. And then
> all the contributers will think their contribution did nothing
> but make someone else famous and rich and no one read their
> free contribution.
>
> Of the remaining 25% of the licenses, only 11% is CC-SA.
> CC-SA is the only license that enables a true gift economy.
> (well, CC-BY-SA can do it too, with the latest revision
> to how attribution works as an optional thing.)
>
> THat's the license that people need to be inspired to
> rally around a work, to know their contribution will
> continue to live on, to know their work won't get
> eclipsed by some commercial version, to know that
> any derivative of their work is automatically ShareAlike
> and accesible to them.
>
> So with CC-SA, you have a license that *allows*
> gift economies to thrive and survive.
>
> ALl that's missing is the project. But that is the
> other part of the problem. The big, successful
> gift economy projects allow many people to make
> small contributions and to have that aggregate
> into something huge. There aren't actually many
> projects that work that way. Wikipedia is the
> classic example of gift economy. someone could come
> in and fix one sentence in a single entry, and
> never make another contribution again, but know
> that they were part of the project.
>
> As far as I can see, a lot of copyright-related
> projects actually require a substantial amount
> of time and energy from a number of individuals,
> which makes contributing to such projects a bit
> more difficult than to contribute to, say,
> wikipedia by clicking "edit" and fixing a spelling
> error.
>
> The license needed to enable reuse exists.
> It is CC-SA. THe problem is finding projects
> that inspire, and that many people can make small
> free constributions to.

Well Greg,

I agree that SA (in conjunction with no NC) is the key as to the licence 
issue. Now as to the projects.

Here is one I am slowly working towards...

I want to make music available as ardour project files. I want to have each 
part as a seperate track. In the long run I hope ardour project files can 
include lyrics and actual note data etc as well.

I want to do this for new music as well as for old standards etc. in the 
public domain.

OK, so if I get a simple lead vocal and rhythm track recorded and released, 
then others can add parts as they wish. others can come in and add lyrics, 
others can do the notation, etc, etc.

Not quite fix a single sentence small, but still doable improvements by a 
single person in a short time.

We shall see. I think releasing BY-SA is key. I want people all over to be 
able to put together and sell CDs of this music as a means of spreading the 
idea. (And to see what develops in the market as well as in the culture.)

I have considered asking for a retail only commercial clause, but that would 
be just one more licence to contend with.
>
> Greg
>
all the best,

drew
-- 
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