Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Rob Myers <rob AT robmyers.org>]

On 14 Apr 2006, at 14:54, Evan Prodromou wrote:

> This anti-DRM clause restricts the licensee's ability to port to  
> platforms where DRM is required. I can't use an image under this  
> license in many PDA bookreader platforms, nor in console systems  
> like the Playstation.

This is a problem with those platforms, not the content. If the CC  
licenses were to say that the content *must* be *distributed* in  
transparent form, it allows the user to port the content to whichever  
DRM-encumbered platform they like. If the content is allowed to be  
distributed in DRM-encumbered form, the user can only use it on one  
of their PDA bookreaders or on one of their Playstations. This may be  
content, but it isn't open.

> A much better scheme (I think) is parallel distribution: licensee  
> can use DRM, if they make an unrestricted version available, too.  
> That way, creative folk can experiment with DRM'd platforms, but  
> the recipients of the work can still exercise their freedoms to  
> distribute and modify the work.

It is important to make the non-DRM form the primary form for  
distribution. The GNU FDL's requirement of a transparent copy in  
addition to the non-editable copy (rather than the other way round)  
seems to cause no end of debate at Debian.

Making Open Content available in a form where it is actually open  
must not be an optional extra or an afterthought.

> If you think that the Playstation market is going to dry up from  
> lack of Open Content images and music, well, think again, and a  
> little harder this time. Maybe, instead, Open Content will benefit  
> from being available on DRM platforms.

Popularity is not the same as being right. And I didn't think we were  
at the stage where non-DRM content could not be played by devices (if  
we are, a lot of the apologists for DRM will need to update their  
scripts). Maybe platform vendors will benefit from not being locked  
into DRM licensing schemes that are against their and their users  
interests. Nintendo's Revolution is planned as an open platform IIRC.  
Open Content is a SNIU for this.

- Rob.