Development of Creative Commons licenses

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

hm, I just saw something on television that
seems weirdly related to this. It was a program
about human instincts, and one of the ideas
is that the concept of fairness is one such
instinct that has evolved genetically in our
brains.

The experiment that the TV program mentioned
that supported this claim goes like this:

experimenters take two kids, and present them
with 10 chocolate candies. They then give them
to one of the two kids, say Alice, and tell
Alice that she can split the candies between her
and Bob any way she wishes. In the experiments,
Alice seems to do a split resembling a bell curve
with the tip at 5 and 0 and the peek at 2.5

Once Alice makes the split, the experimenters
then turn to Bob and give him a choice.
Bob can either (1) accept the split that Alice
made, and take whatever candies she gave him, or
(2) reject the split and no one gets any candy.

(alice isn't told bob gets to reject the split
until after she's made the split)

The experiments showed Bob's overwhelming response
was to reject the split and go home empty handed,
rather than accept an unfair split and let Alice
get more than was "fair".

The "no DRM allowed at all" licenses seem to be
saying upfront that any attempt to perform
an unfair split using DRM technology will be
rejected out of hand, even if it means that
no one gets any candy at all.

The "DRM is allowed if a clear version is available"
option seems to be saying upfront that basically,
2 candies out of 10 is still better than no candy
at all.

But one of the things about the candy experiment,
is that that kids weren't starving. If they
rejected the candy now, they could probably go home
and get some candy at some point later. candy isn't
scarce. And rejecting the candy isn't a question of
survival. If the kids were starving and that was
the only known food, then you'd probably see more
Bob's accepting unfair splits to get any candy at all.

So, the question seems first to come down to
one of fairness versus scarcity.

if fairness is the priority, then anything that
isn't a fair split should be rejected.

if scarcity/survival is driving the decision, then any candy
is better than no candy. Or non-metaphorically, to
get your work played on a DRM machine is better than
not getting it played at all.

And so, the questions that follows are:
Is this a matter of survival or scarcity?
Or is this a question of being fair?

Can people who use CC licenses afford to
reject DRM and demand fair copyright technology?

Probably most importantly, what exactly is a DRM
split really worth? is it like a 9-1 split or a 5-4 split?

I don't have any numbers to support any of my answers,
but here is what it feels like to me:

It *feels* like this is a question of fairness.
And it feels that way to me because it *feels*
like allowing DRM is like accepting a 99-1 split.
The DRM payoff for the vast majority of CC license
users feel like it would basically be zero, and
perhaps some small percentage of folks will get
played, get noticed, and get a record contract.
Allowing DRM will not benefit most CC users in any
significant way that I can see.

And since the payoff is so minimal, it isn't
a question of "accept 9-1 split because 1 candy
will let you live, and zero candies means you die".
It seems more like "Accept a 99-1 split and it
won't make a difference for most folks anyway".
at which point the instinctive answer seems to be
"reject the split and put a spotlight on the
unfair split."

Rob seems to be saying that DRM should be
rejected because it is unfair.

Evan seems to be saying that DRM should be
allowed, and I'll assume its either because
he thinks the payoff is a close-to-fair split
(whether he believes this applies specificly
to him or for most CC users, I'm not sure),
or he thinks DRM is needed for survival and
any advantage will help, even if it is unfair
(take the 9-1 split because +1 is better
than +0). Or perhaps, he has other reasons
I haven't figured out yet.

Anyway, it seems to me that DRM is unfair,
and that allowing DRM is miniscule advantage
to most CC users anyway, so it seems like
the thing to do is to reject DRM in the license.

Greg
--opinions subject to change.




> On 14 Apr 2006, at 19:15, Greg London wrote:
>
>> However, given that, it seems that the "no DRM at all"
>> variations are attempting to make a strategic move
>> in game theory sense. By prohibiting any DRM, it would
>> seem they are trying to force folks who use DRM to
>> suffer some consequences and drop it or have non-DRM
>> options available.
>
> They are a response to the strategic move by DRM advocates. We
> already suffer consequences from using DRM (DRM is a significant cost
> for artists and consumers), anti-DRM clauses are designed to remove
> those consequences (although obviously they do have their own side-
> effects).
>
>> It's unlikely that we'll see DRM go away without
>> congress enforcing it or the supreme court ruling
>> it to be illegal.
>
> Certainly the market will not be allowed to decide whether consumers
> want DRM or not if the DRM vendors have their way.
>
>> However, it *might* be possible that were
>> "no DRM at all" works to get popular enough,
>> that DRM platforms *might* consider building
>> in a Non-DRM option.
>
> This is why it is important for "Open Content" to not capitulate to
> DRM at this moment. Even to stupid attempts at feelgood DRM like Sun's:
>
> http://www.boingboing.net/2006/04/14/how_suns_open_drm_do.html
>
>> i.e. PDA bookreaders and
>> playstations and the like might be built such
>> that content *can* be transferred without DRM.
>
> The problem is that if readers and playstations can ignore DRM they
> are just piracy machines and can be used to kill puppies. Or something.
>
> - Rob.
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