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Subject: Development of Creative Commons licenses

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  • From: Jedi <Jedi AT creativecommons.org.tw>
  • To: cc-icommons AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Cc: CC Taiwan Mail Archive <archive AT creativecommons.org.tw>, emyleo <emyleo AT iis.sinica.edu.tw>, yihsuan AT iis.sinica.edu.tw, Jyh-An Lee <jyhanlee AT stanford.edu>, cc-licenses AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [cc-licenses] Wording issue about Commons Deed
  • Date: Fri, 10 Mar 2006 17:31:03 +0800

Hi,

Weeks ago, I have a discussion with Mike Linksvayer on IRC. I think that
there currently is a wording issue on CC's commons deed webpages which
may mislead users and make people a little confused.

It's about the discription of CC's "Attribution" element. It was "You
must give the original author credit" (please refer to
http://0rz.net/2d19m ). After CC 2.5 licenses go, Mike told me, the
words were modified to make them more general to cover both
2.0-and-before and 2.5-and-after CC licenses. So it is "You must
attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor"
now, on Commons Deed page of any version of CC licenses.

Here are my points:

1. The Commons Deed is a summary of the key terms of the actual license
(which is the Legal Code). People think of it as the user-friendly
interface to the Legal Code beneath.

1.1. Although this Deed itself has no legal value, and its contents do
not appear in the actual license, Commons Deed should never violate
actual Legal Code behind it. That is, no over, no lack.

(Point 1. and 1.1. please refer to http://0rz.net/3318N )

2. Main change from CC 2.0 to CC 2.5 is:
a) restrict users from removing "any reference to such Licensor or
the Original Author" (2.0) -> restrict users from removing "any
credit as required by clause 4(d)" (2.5)
b) in 2.5, clause 4(d) added "if the Original Author and/or Licensor
designate another party or parties (e.g. a sponsor institute,
publishing entity, journal) for attribution in Licensor's
copyright notice, terms of service or by other reasonable means,
the name of such party or parties; ...." text.

2.1. In short, 2.5 have more specific methology about "Attribution" so
that users now must obey the manner specified by original
author/licensor. But 2.0 only require users to give original author
credit by conveying the name of the original author (or pseudonym,
if applicable).

2.2. So that "attribute the work in the manner specified by the author
or licensor" is overmuch accroding to the Legal Code of CC 2.0.

3. Says, there is two people, Ali and Bob. Ali released his work "Artoo"
under CC:by 2.0 license but also noted "...in order to attribute this
work, users have to designate publisher CoPix..." Now Bob is willing
to us Ali's work, "Artoo."

3.1. Although Ali specified a manner to attribute his work, Bob doesn't
have such duty to follow this manner, according to actual CC
license which "Artoo" is released under. However, the discription
of "Attribution" shown on Commons Deed of CC:by 2.0 may make Bob
think that he have to obey so.

3.2. Worse, Ali may misbelieve that all users have to obey this manner
when using a CC 2.0 license. He now may have a legal friction with
Bob in case Bob doesn't obey so.

3.3. Again, because of this misbelief, Ali and other authors don't have
any mind to push some on-line album service provider, Dlickr, to
upgrade its licensing mechanism which currently only provide CC 1.0
and 2.0 licenses for its users.

You see, this is what may happen. I know it's a rare case. But I believe
that prevention is better than repair. So I suggest that we rethink
about the wording on Commons Deed, especially for "Attribution" of
varied version of CC licenses.

Best,
/Jedi/




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